Friday, December 31, 2004

Lots of robots

This site comes recommended. Terribly large files though. I'll download the movies at home. 100MB+ downloads, I don't think the boss would appreciate it...

Rants, Raves and Reviews

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

The Firy DDOSer

And to balance everything out a bit before I get accused of "immigrant-bashing" :

Ddos-dwarf set fire to mosque.

It turns out that one of the assholes who DDOSed several governmentsites and communityforums, and was arrested for it, is now one of the suspects in an arson-case. Apparently he is suspected of setting a mosque on fire in Breda, The Netherlands. This 'person' is 17 years old by the way, so he must have a fantastic future still ahead of him. With a criminal record, yes, that might complicate matters a bit...

According to the police the arson was a case of "playing with buildingmaterials which then caught fire". Riiiiiight...

Anyway, as the guys at GeenStijl say : If your server catches fire all of a sudden, this guy may be DDOSing in his own unique way.

Why the labourparty keeps losing the faith of the people, an example

This one deserves a longer posting. This is what a member of the labourparty apparently can get away with in the Netherlands... And it is also a very good reason not to vote for them. Are you listening mr. Wouter Bos?

(Translation by me, pardon the errors).

Labour(Party:PvdA)-councilman dumps wife in Marocco.
by Johan van den Dongen and Bart Olmer

AMSTERDAM - PvdA-councilman Mohammed el Yaakoubi of the Amsterdam borough of Geuzenveld-Slotermeer is under attack because he dumped his wife - also the mother of his two sons - in Morocco during the holidays.

The woman, Habiba el Yousfi (27), managed to return to the Netherlands two and a half months later and went to the police in Amsterdam. According to the official complaint El Yaakoubi stole her passport and permit, to make it impossible for her to return to the Netherlands. The Amsterdam court ruled in favour of the woman on all issues in the case. El Yaakoubi must return her papers of identification as well as their sons Yassine and Rachid and the house they lived in. El Yakoubi also has to pay a monthly alimony of 1.000 Euros. In a cry for help on the internet Habiba writes that her husband - who is not only a councilman but also a projectleader and analyst for the ING-bank - treated her like dirt after a nine-year marriage and left her behind in Morocco. The family was on a holiday there this summer. "Once I found out that my kids were missing I searched everywhere", according to the abandoned wife.

Back in Amsterdam the labour councilman started a divorce-procedure. The councilman claimed that he did not know where his wife was. The court of law and the bailiff asked the "missing" Habiba to report to the police by placing advertisements in the newspapers.

Habibi managed to get new paperwork in Morocco and followed her family to Holland. She appeared in court in Amsterdam just in time. The husband stated that his wife had 'a bad influence' on the children. The judge however, ruled in favour of the wife and declared that the councilman has to give his wife the children and the house and pay her alimony.

El Yakoubi has so far ignored the court-ruling. According to him his wife is 'spreading lies'. He declined to give any other comment.

The Labourparty supports the councilman. Local partyleader Wouter van der Wulp : "It is of course logical that the PvdA is strongly against wives being dumped in Morocco, but in this case nothing points to that. I have discussed the matter with El Yakoubi and he claims that his wife is "slinging mud".

At an undisclosed location Habibi explains why she came out into the open though the internet. "Our marriage got worse and worse after our sons were born. I was not allowed to go outside nor open the frontdoor. My husband was very angry when I secretly started to learn Dutch".

Although the judge ruled in her favour on all issues, Habibi has nothing left at the moment. She has gone into hiding. Without children, alimoney or welfare-income, in borrowed clothes and completely uninsured.

The esteemed councilman has now sued her and the case is to appear in court today. In a legal procedure he demands she finds her own home.


Original source

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

How to convert Atari-floppies so they can be read on a PC

If anybody reads this and can help me out I would really really appreciate it.

In the slightly damp eighties I used to record miditracks using an Atari 1040Stf with Pro-24(what is now known as Cubase). Ultimately the result was a stack of 15 floppy disks loaded to the brim with demos, songs and ideas.
I now use Cubase on a Pentium4 and I want to use the Atari-files as the basis of new tracks.

Here is the problem : I can't read the Atari-floppies on my PC-drive. This may be because the format is different but it could also be because the old Atari-drive started to deviate over the years. In short: I saved the files using a somewhat out-of-sync floppydrive and I try to load them using a perfectly normal PC-drive.

Can anyone tell me what to do?

UPDATE: It did find this but I'm not sure if it will work.

UPDATE: I can't find the original author but let me say "Thank you sir for that beautiful utility you wrote called ST2DOS.EXE". Basically there are two problems : getting your PC to read the Atari-floppy and converting/importing the files into your sequencerprogram(in my case Cubase). The first problem can be solved with the ST2DOS.EXE program. This program will alter the index-record of the floppy so a PC-drive can read it. And it works...

The second problem is trickier: You need to convert the .SNG files to .MID files so Cubase can read them. I found references to a Voyetra Sequencer Plus for DOS(!!!) that you can download and install but after much mucking about it still refuses to play on Windows2000. Not so surprising because the software was written in the early nineties and was meant as a DOS-based sequencer(!).

The search goes on...

My NordLead II

The Nord-Lead II is really an awesome synthesizer. It is a Virtual Analog synth, which basically means that they try to digitally emulate all the knobs en sliders on an old analog synthesizer. The problem is that analog controls have an infinite sensitivity, whereas anything digital always has 'steps' with which to increase/decrease a parametervalue.

The Nord-Lead is one of the first VA(virtual analog) synths to really work well. It sounds pretty vintage, Clavia have built in a ringmodulator, PulseWidthModulation, an Arpeggiator and all those luverly old analog circuits that I loved so well are simulated.

Programming the NL-II is no mean feat. Creating sounds is not hard, but you can actually combine 4 of those sounds to create a "layered sound". This is Megacool as it stacks sound upon sound. If you have never heard 4 synthesizers with PulseWidthModulation in sync try it out!

One of the most fantastic features of this synth is the way it stores sounds. Normally you create sounds and then use these sounds in a combination(split-keyboard, layering, that sort of stuff). If you change a single sound you also change the combinations in which this sound is used. Not so with the Nord! The moment you save a combination of sounds you also save a copy of the sounds that make up the combination. In effect freeing up your soundbanks for new sounds. If you ever want one of the sounds back into the memory so you can tweak it and use it for other songs, this is no problem. It makes the Nord one of most userfriendly synths I have seen so far.

The Great Groinshaker

Now, about this Michael Jackson...

Not only has he been indicted for lewdness with young children, he also receives one courtorder after the other from the businessworld because of unpaid bills.

Mayfair has just filed a complaint with the police because MJ did not pay a couple of hundredthousand dollars for jewellery he "bought". Source : Mayfair

And then there is a mister Marc Schaffel(a Porn-producer) who has filed a complaint with the police because he is still owed a couple of million dollars by Mr. Jackson. Juicy details : he is owed these millions because he produced two documentaries for MJ in order to restore MJ's image in the public eye. That must be really useful if you don't pay your bills. He should come across as very trustworthy that way... Source : The Smoking Gun

Read through the first few pages and you will end up in the real life of The Pedophile Pop-dinosaur. Read how the bank has forbidden the Great Groinshaker to spend money on specific things. Read how MJ's defense attorneys state that Mr. Jackson is broke and cannot pay for all this. A bit weird when you take into consideration that the man has earned over 1,5 billion dollars in his life, and that money comes from the record-sales alone. Add his Pepsi-contracts and the rest of the merchandising and his earnings have been at least 2 billion dollars...

O.K. I admit : you give Marlon Brando a million dollars to get up on stage and stand next to you because that's cool, you spend 600.000 dollars on a present for Lizzy Taylor so she won't object to being in your video-documentary, these things do not help of course...

And then there is his family... Talk about money-vultures. After the BBC aired the Bashir-documentary which was so damaging for MJ, the Former King of Pop had a more positive documentary produced as an antidote(yep, the one he didn't pay for...). In this documentary we can also see Mama Jackson, who did not mind being in the video as long as she got money for it... As if they haven't received enough money from Michael Jackson.

This guy is seriously Off-The-Wall, this guy should be under supervision of a counceller or two. He does not even know what planet he lives on anymore. But you have to admit : the money-vultures are hounding him continuously.
Of course you do tend to spend money like water flowing through your hands if you insist on having your own giraffes in your backgarden...

It is an outrage that nobody stopped this man sooner. Of course he may not have been open to advice, it is his money. But this off-this-planet guy does not have a single notion about the value of money. He is like a small child : when mama says no you just go to daddy. After the bank had forbidden him to spend money on certain things, he borrowed money from other people. A guy with an estimated lifetime-income of over 2 billion dollars and he has to borrow money from other people... But apparently, nobody heard the alarm-bells going off.

Jackson lives between the vultures and they don't even wait until the body stops moving.

Monday, December 27, 2004

Jezus Christ knows better...

What I was afraid of turns out to be true : pop-music is the work of the devil... Do these people actually exist in real life or only on the web? The answer is clear : this idiot is actually a well-known tv-personality on a christian network.

And to think everyone is complaining about "those fanatical moslims"...

Sorry, the site is in dutch. Try Babelfish, it can't generate more rubbish than the original.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Zork downloads

Still a frustrating but challenging game : Zork.

"You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here..."

Satire on the web

I like making fun of life and I enjoy reading sites that do just that. Take SatireWire

Not for people who lack a sense of humour...

One of the reasons I use Mozilla

One of the reasons I use Mozilla - apart from tab-surfing, a better downloadmanager etcetera, is this. Is anyone surprised that paranoia is growing and growing?

Did I tell you...

OldSkool

That I play synthesizers? If you're interested, the two main sites to drool over are The SynthMuseum and Vintage Synths

Required reading, required drooling...

Bloggers in Space

And of course thank you Hans for being the first person to link to these humble pages. There is a "Splinter Inside" there. Knowing the family I doubt if it can ever be removed! :-)

Everest, I love it

This is an absolute must when you have to reinstall windows. It shows you exactly what hardware is present on your PC. Not like that stupid windows devicemanager that basically says "you have a monitor attached". Everest says " You have a Philips B109 monitor connected, click here to get the drivers".

Now that is what I call information!

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Moebiusgame

This is harder than it looks! Go Moebius.

Bug me not

For all those people who go crazy registering for all those online newspaper-sites etcetera, here is the solution to your problems.

Friday, December 24, 2004

Thursday, December 23, 2004

This fundamentalism-thingy

You all know that Theo van Gogh was killed by some deranged moslim-extremist. Holland is known for its extreme tolerance, so for those of you who don't understand the violent dutch reaction to that murder - the burning down of mosques etcetera - here's little something I think has a true ring to it :

For the dutch tolerance IS the religion of choice. And when that 'religion' gets attacked we are just as fundamental as those who believe in a god.

Yes I am a Nerd, so??

Just read back the data(my preferences) I entered in my profile and O.K. I concede : I am a NERD, and proud of it!

After all; we did give the world PCs, Game-machines, the Internet, synthesizers, and Doritos with Coke...

The unique Steve Wright

"I lost a button hole today"

"If God dropped acid, would he see people?"

"A good theory should fit on a T-shirt."

More Steve Wright quotes

Footballrights

The fact that commercial mister De Mol has obtained the TV-rights for dutch football is not that interesting to me. But is will probably mean that we'll have to zap until the cows come home just to find the stupid game...

*cough* *cough*

Flu

Take it from me : if you get the flu don't think it's 'just a cold'. Take it easy because otherwise it may cost you 10 days to get back to life again.

A Flower?

Peter Gabriel


This is something I wrote a little while ago. Gotta start somewhere getting some content on this page...

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel was a pupil of Charterhouse school in the late sixties. During his stay there he met Anthony Philips, Tony Banks and Michael Rutherford. Together they started a band by joining The Garden Wall and The Anon, both duos at the time. Because ex-student and celebrity Jonathan King came to visit in 1969, they wrote several 'BeeGees-like' songs, J King being an avid fan of BeeGees. Mr King was at least impressed enough to get them a record contract and came up with a name for the new band, Genesis.

Genesis

The first LP, From Genesis to Revelation, was not very successful and the band decided to alter their musical course to more suit their own preferences. The musicians started working towards refining their own musical style, often by rehearsing for 18 hours or more a day. In combination with the musical talent present, this resulted in the second LP, Trespass. Trespass contained the first Genesis songs in the style that was to become their trademark, most notably 'The Knife' with its complex musical changes and almost classical structure.

On the road Genesis was still not very successful. They tended to get gigs in ballrooms filled with audiences expecting a pop-band. The complex structure of the songs required somewhat more attention than the average 'hit song' and a long span of attention was usually not one of the qualities possessed by the audience.

In the years that followed Genesis steadily won over a lot of people. This was, among other things, due to the outrageous costumes that Peter Gabriel used to wear on stage. No one knew at the time, and it is still an obscure fact today, that these costumes were in fact made by Peter himself from all kinds of left-over materials. Anything else was out of the question because it would have involved money and there was none around.

As the band's popularity grew, Gabriel started to feel uncomfortable about the way the band was run. All through the history of Genesis the band has been a musicians' collective. This means that only the keyboard player is allowed to play keyboards, the drummer is the only one playing drums and percussion, etc. On top of that the songs were all written collectively.

After recording several increasingly complex studio LP's - Foxtrot, Nursery Crimes and Selling England by the Pound - Peter gave the band an ultimatum: either he would be allowed to write a whole new Genesis album or he would leave the band. The other members agreed to give him his chance and they collectively chose Peter's line, 'the lamb lies down on Broadway...' as the subject of the new LP. In the end it turned out that Peter was not able to complete the double-album he intended to write on his own, so keyboard-player Tony Banks assisted him throughout side four.

The band performed The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway live and were met by both great critical acclaim, as well as by dissatisfied fans who just didn't quite understand it all, and especially its surreal lyrical content. Nowadays the album is considered to be the most progressive and complex album Genesis ever recorded with Peter Gabriel. It is usually placed in the hall of fame next to such other great classics as Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes.

After Genesis

Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1974, when the band returned from the The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour. The popular media used this occasion to declare both Genesis and Peter Gabriel musically dead, and good riddance. However in 1975 Peter surprised the world with his first solo LP, tentatively named Peter Gabriel. On it were such immortal songs as 'Here comes the Flood', 'Slowburn' and of course 'Solsbury Hill' which went straight into the charts. The multi-faceted album surprised many people who had expected a logical progression from the music of Genesis to that of Gabriel. Peter, however, seemed to enjoy musical side-tracking, as can be heard, for instance, in 'Waiting for the Big One' :

"The wine's all drunk, and so am I"

Peter's second album, again called Peter Gabriel had a more obscure and introspective ring to it. Among the people who contributed to the album were Kate Bush and Robert Fripp. The album contained no real hits although 'DIY' did make it into the charts.

The next album, which first indicated a major shift to experimental world music, was again called Peter Gabriel. According to Peter, the reason for giving all his albums the same name was very simple; he considered them all editions of the same 'newspaper'. As he stated himself:

"The Times is called The Times but its content changes daily".

The album contained the hit song 'Games Without Frontiers' but the most famous song in the long run turned out to be 'Biko'.

In itself 'Biko' is a song about the death of the anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, but it soon became an exemplary song about the problems with apartheid in South Africa. It also started Peter's involvement with world music on a larger scale. Because of the depth of the lyrics the album was considered to be Peter Gabriel's finest so far. How little did the world know about what would become it's successor.

Peter's fourth album, again called Peter Gabriel (but this time nicknamed Security) turned out to be the perfect combination of modern rock-influence and world music. Contributing musicians were, among others, Manu Katche and Tony Levin. The album starts with the mesmerizing track 'Rhythm of the Heat', followed by the mysterious 'San Jacinto' before blasting off into the electronic 'I Have the Touch'. The album also contained 'Shock the Monkey', still one of the all-time live audience favourites because of its fantastic electronic dancebeat.

Next came the double live-album Peter Gabriel Plays Live. As the name indicates it is a live album, containing a good cross-section of his work and is very good as an overall introduction to his music. Throughout the eighties Peter Gabriel worked on several soundtracks including those for the movies Birdy and the controversial The Last Temptation of Christ. These productions were based on previously released material, which was edited and re-recorded when and where necessary.

Peter Gabriel's biggest commercial success came with the release of the album So. Contributing musicians included Kate Bush, Tony Levin and Youssou N'dour. The album contained the superhit 'Sledgehammer'. The accompanying video redefined the making of videos in general. The album also contained the ominous 'We Do As We're Told' and the very cynical 'Big Time':

"My belly's getting bigger, and my bank-account"

So was followed by a similar album called Us. Although it is much more an album 'to listen to', it does contain the hit 'Steam' - a song of the same ilk as 'Sledgehammer'. After Us Peter released his second live-album Secret World Live, another fine example of how to go about on stage. The album perfectly captures the atmosphere of a Peter Gabriel concert. It also contains several previously unreleased songs.

Gabriel's most recent music can be found on OVO and OVO the Millennium Show. OVO tells the story of three stages of evolution, through three generations. It's the story of a family on the move, divided by conflicts and by huge changes going on around them. It is a story of forbidden love.

Ever since he began Peter Gabriel has made changing style an art form. What Bowie did for visuals, Peter did for music. He has, since then, become very popular. He started the WOMAD festival, produced some dazzling videos that could be called art and through him several artists have became famous, for example Youssou N'dour. He is also credited by Kate Bush for 'opening the windows' for her.

Discography

A quick, incomplete, discography of his solo work:

* Peter Gabriel
* Peter Gabriel (PG 2)
* Peter Gabriel (PG 3)
* Peter Gabriel Plays Live
* Peter Gabriel (Security)
* Birdy (original soundtrack to 'Birdy')
* Passion (original soundtrack to 'The Last Temptation of Christ')
* Shaking the Tree
* Us
* Secret World Live
* OVO - The Millennium show
* OVO

Some links I use

Some links to help you get through the day.

Until I find the time to edit my blog-template to included a links-section here are some links I frequently use :

Het Kasteel - The place to be in Alphen aan den Rijn. Check out the forum. And don't forget to learn Dutch first... :-)

Joe Michael Straczinsky News - All - and I mean over 17.000(!) - usenetpostings by Babylon-5 creator J. Michael Straczinsky. With a useful forum to boot.

Great sites guys, saves me a lot of time...

You gotta love these sites!

Never search for funny movieclips again, just go to Big Boys or wtfpeople and enjoy!

Babylon-5 vs. commercialism

Rumor has it that the actors in the new - and first - Babylon-5 feature-movie will be recast. How dare they!

Babylon-5 was made famous by these people, they deserve to be in the feature-film. Unless the original characters don't appear in it of course...

JMSNews