Bloggers@large

It is amazing! Have you ever noticed how stupid computers actually are? I have been working with computers since 1988 when I bought my first AT 12Mhz IBM-compatible PC, with DOS 3.1. The same year I started working with an Apple. A lot has changed since then, but one thing remains the same: the way computers interact with dumb pop-ups and totally unusefull “information”. Nowadays I work on both a PC and a Mac. And yes, on both computers I run Microsoft software. And really: it’s amazing: in the last 19 (!) years it seems Microsoft still hasn’t been able […]

Here we go: another podcast 🙂 Blogcast April 24 2005

Ok, it’s just an experiment. So chill out 😉 Bloggers@large podcast April 5th 2005

Terri Schiavo, 41 died today at 09:05am in Florida. Mrs Schiavo’s feeding tube was removed on 18 March in accordance with a ruling by a Florida appeals court after a protracted battle which included an intervention by state Governor Jeb Bush. She died 13 days later despite a number of last-ditch efforts by her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, to have her feeding tube re-inserted. But we will be sure that with her death the case does not end here, at least not for those directly involved. As time was running out for the Schindlers, President George W Bush signed […]

Another day, another story: the US Supreme Court has once again refused to order doctors in Florida to resume the feeding of Terri Schiavo. It was the sixth time since 2000 that the Supreme Court declined to intervene in this case. Hours earlier, a federal appeals court in Atlanta rejected a request for the parents’ petition to be reheard. Courts at all levels have sided with Mrs Schiavo’s husband – her legal guardian. Now let’s hope it ends soon!

After my first blog on this sad case, many things have happened. For starters, a 19th judge has ruled that there is no reason to start the forced feeding again. In other words, starving the body of what once was the person Terri Schiavo has been ruled to be ok. Do not get me wrong: I think the whole case should end here, but the process of starving her is rather stupid. It takes a long time and it is aggravating. If it where me, or any of my close family I would rather have them inject me and have […]

Ok, folks, usually I try to avoid politics in my webblog, but once again, George Bush has succeeded in making another horrifying decision. I am talking about the Schiavo case. Bush signed an emergency law that – in effect – keeps this seriously brain-damaged woman alive (probably against her own will, and certainly against her husbands will). If anything else, this clearly demonstrates Bush’s lack of respect for the so-called “Trias Politica” principle. And, in my humble opinion, it marks a new era of politics, or should I say: “dictatorship”. If there is one thing that distinguishes the western democratic […]

I wrote a couple of times about my videocard being fried after the fan (probably worth less than a buck) died on it. It was a MSI nVdia Geforce FX5600 with 256mb of ram on it. It was not the worst card, but it was not good either: when running Doom3 for instance, it would slow down to about 10fps. With other games, it was just mediocre. After replacing the faulty fan with a new copper fan (that cost me € 19,-) it first would not fix the garbled video, but for some weird reason after 1 day it did. […]

It is not often any more that we have snow during winter. The last few years it did not snow, and when it did snow, it was always gone in a couple of hours. Not this week: in some places we had 1-2 feet of snow! A winterwonderland… Some photo’s here… March 5th 10am: a winterwonderland(c) HvdG Real dutch people do not get distracted by snow: we take our bikes everywhere!(c) HvdG 1 1/2 inch of snow.(c) HvdG Winterwonderland at night: spooky!(c) HvdG Behind my house @ night. Snowy lights!(c) HvdG

Winter in march. And more snow than we had in 20 (!!) years. When I was a kid I remember we had a few winters in a row with 20inches of snow. Usually when it is this kind of weather, it’s a guaranteed hell to drive to work. But for some reason it wasn’t as bad as we expected. Let’s see about tomorrow. Let it snow, let it snow…(c) HvdG