Sand Castle

Once in a while you find yourself in another YouTube video spree: by accident you hit a video of a certain subject and in the right side of your screen tons of related videos appear. There's a niche for almost everything, and sometimes it is rather funny to explore such a niche.

Here's how building sand castles is a metaphor for almost everything else, in life. Ai, cannot embed video, have to link to it. Sorry, here's a Failblog video instead.

PS: Wonder how I got there? A Blogger link about adding gadgets to your blog -> a 'how to' video about monetizing your blog -> a 'how to' video about building a sand castle (crappy style) -> some other sand castle building videos (I learned that water is key) -> the other video (I linked to) -> this video.

PPS: Had to write this (will explain later..): "Get a strike with a fuzzy decorative dice"

Christmas Part 2/2

Where I live, Christmas comes in two parts, 'first Christmas day' and (surprise surprise) 'second Christmas day'. The first is preceded by Christmas eve, the important of which depends per family (and their religion). Having two days of Christmas is convenient to spread family activities.

One way
One way of doing things is: first day with the 'family-as-in-mom-dad-children', the next with extended family. The other option is: first day with her family, second day with his' (or vice versa), although the chain has to break at some point because 'her' brother might be spending the first day with his significant other's family (still not confused? ;-)

Another way
Others use the 2nd day to go shopping (comparable perhaps to Boxing Day activity).

Third day
Sometimes, very informally, a third day is introduced to spent time with friends.

Holiday
These two days of Christmas are holidays in the sense of getting off from work and school, but they always fall on 25th and 26th. Since Saturday and Sunday are already non-work/school days, this year is therefore very disadvantuous (had to Google that). Especially because the same goes for New Year's day (1st of January).

Grey Christmas
In closing, I want to introduce the term 'Grey Christmas', as opposed to 'White Christmas'. This happens if Christmas is decorated with over a week old snow, mixed up with sand, oil, salt and what more. That's not white man, that's grey!

Christmas Part 1/2

Goodday all! Merry Christmas. It's sunny out here. But cold. There's still some snow left over from last week, so we can go beyond dreaming, regarding this white Christmas thing. Now we can all go and make peace, eat our bellies full and donate a few bucks to the homeless to wash away our guilt.

In other news, 40 people were killed in an explosion in northern Pakistan (probably a suicide bomber). Luckily, stocks and oil prices are doing just fine.

Oh and here's this funny xkcd comic I saw today, very season-relevant. Since they posted the img-url with this text: "Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding)" I thought it was alright to do so :-D

The Social Network

I watched the social network yesterday and thought I'd give it a review. This in the spirit of trying all kinds of approaches to blogging, this December. So, I liked the movie. There you go :-D Nah, there's more to it :-D

Real?

The Social Network gives us a reconstruction of how Facebook (no...spell checker wants me to write that with capital F) started, and what this did to the life of (co?)founder Mark Zuckerberg. Real (brand)names are used and the movie is based on true facts, but there's also some part of fiction in there. Where this thin line is, I don't know. Many won't. Poor Mark.

Yada yada yada

The conversations in the movie are eloquent and extremely fast paced. It reminded me of this TV show 'Gilmore Girls'. I feel sorry for those that have to subtitle this movie, or watch it in any other than their native language :) I liked it though, especially in cases where Mark's being a smart-ass in court.

Story

The story starts with Mark's girlfriend breaking up with him. This sets of everything else. At some point a second and a third timeline are introduced, displaying the two lawsuits Mark is in. This can be a little confusing if you don't have any knowledge of Facebook's story beforehand. Flashed back from the lawsuits we see the story unfold, the rise of Facebook, the fall of friendship. And then, suddenly, snap, it's over.

Tech talk

Do you remember the movie 'Hackers'? They hacked into the school systems and set off the sprinkler system. ever since, movies with computers involved are extremely unrealistic, and so are the computer screens displaying graphical animations of the hack. The Social Network also has a fair amount of tech talk, for instance when Mark is obtaining all the pictures for FaceMash. But this time it is quite realistic. It must be quite vague for the non-nerd. That is OK, you don't need to understand it to get the story, just be in aw :-D

Wannabe?

Emotionally and socially, you don't want to be Mark (at least as he is portrayed in the film). But economically? I have to admit there is some 'I wish' factor going on while watching this guy set up a multi billion company.

And since adding videos to a post is kinda addictive, here's the trailer. I hadn't seen it yet, it is quite original, because of how it starts (I'm not talking about the green screen thing).

Blog Browsing

So I needed one more post to get back on planning track :-D Thought I would just skip next-blog until I found a cool one. That turned out not so easy. So instead I decided to take it to meta level again :-D

First glances
Some blogs have such large 'titles' (including - or even only consisting of - pictures) that the first blog post falls from the screen. Some blogs were more than unreasonably unreadable due to layout and font (color) choices. Others did better, having a striking title, perhaps with a subtitle, enough to trigger curiosity (something I can  learn from).


Second glances
Soo many blogs with baby pictures, family portraits. Niches at its finest. Where's my niche? Still in the making I guess ;) And bible quotes. Some pretty spot on I have to say. Otherwise, not my cup of tea.

Third glances
Third glance was usually already the next blog, although in some cases the blog managed to mess up the whole blogger toolbar into oblivion. Great! Luckily browser back + next blog = random :-D

StumbleUpon
Finally I decided to go to stumbleupon to see if I could go and find something nice to review here. But well, no. Maybe I should just close my laptop and focus on the cold beer standing next to me :-D

Real time

Snow
Today it has snowed where I live. Not much, but enough to fully mess up all public and non-public forms of transport. What is the first thing that you do? Right, check what's happening on the news. Nowadays, you don't have to wait, but go on the internet and pick out your favorite news site. There I found some information, but a lot was outdated. Even the newest articles were partly re-edits and re-quotes of previous articles.

What about public transport sites? The organisation that controls the trains was out of the air. The one concerning buses had information that was updated roughly each hour. But how is it really? On a minute to minute or even on a second to second basis?

Twitter
Did you ever try to convince your (grand)parents to use for instance a computer or mobile phone? How often (although there are exceptions) they are reluctant to try new things? I had this with Twitter, almost. As if a new generation is slowly creeping up on me. Not yet! I am slowly discovering Twitter and everything around it (shortened urls, tweetpics, etc etc).

To get the best impression of what was going on in the country, I used Twitter. It gave me by far the best impression of what is going on and kept me from joining thousands of others on a railway station where hardly any train would come.

Keeping up
Interestingly, companies start realizing the have to keep up with social media such as Twitter. The bus and railway companies have their own Twitter account for instance. Sadly the frequency of updates drops severely after five o'clock. The news site links Twitter feeds to their news articles, displaying real time information concerning the subject.

Ambiguous
The information on Twitter is hard to interpret for a computer, although the sheer mass of things has given rise to some cool applications. Hash tagging adds information value to tweets, but that is about it. This means I still needed a lot of time to get a good overview of what  was going on. Luckily I had all the time of the world, since there was no transport available anyway.

United we Stand

It seems bad news is becoming a background of noise in our lives. Troubles in the middle east, financial crisis, countries almost going bankrupt, earthquakes, fires, floods and storms, poverty, obesity. And war. God I hate war.

Irony
And you know what's the freaking irony of it all? Jointly we could change most of that instantly. All that and so much more would be possible if all humans would stand united, you would be surprised!

No more war
You are waiting for me to explain uh? Well I was actually already done. We could end war 10 seconds from now if we would all stop fighting. Just like that.

Economy
I have always found economics pointless, the true readout should be: productivity. As long as the joint production of goods and services that are needed for our wellbeing is enough, we actually can all be well. If we decide. Decide to share.

Climate
Maybe we should all decide, right now, that our climate gets top-priority. Top priority in making decisions for companies, top priority for researchers, top priority for individuals living their lives.

Small scale
Also on the somewhat smaller scale, joint efforts can be extremely powerful. What if all inhabitants of a city would agree to fight crime together? What if everyone would respond if one person was attacked? What if the police could mobilize everyone, for instance when the police is looking for a suspect.

Utiopia?
Perhaps, but that doesn't make it less true ;)

valuewait.nl: is het wat?

Een tijdje terug heb ik mij aangemeld bij valuewait. Hier kun je vragen beantwoorden, daarvoor krijg je credits ('values') en daarvoor kun je dan producten aanschaffen. Het idee is dat je vragen beantwoord tijdens het wachten (bv op de bus), vandaar de naam. Aanmelden is gratis. Het bedrijf heeft een tijdje (nu nog?) een actie gedaan samen met busmaatschappij Connexxion.

Soort vragen
Er zijn onderzoeks- en commerciële vragen. Je kunt een 'privacy'-level opgeven, wat mede bepaald of je ook (indirect) door bedrijven kunt worden benaderd, bijvoorbeeld naar aanleiding van een vragenlijst. Zelf heb ik de pricacy op minimaal staan, maar nog geen enkele keer het gevoel gehad dat mij iets werd opgedrongen. De onderzoekjes bestaan meestal uit 10 multiple choice vragen.

Gebruiksgemak
Het hele systeem is uitermate gebruiksvriendelijk. Je kunt vragen online beantwoorden of (zoals het oorspronkelijk bedoeld was) via je mobiele telefoon. Alhoewel je altijd zelf kunt kijken of er nieuwe vragen zijn, kun je ook tijden aangeven waarop je normaal gesproken staat/zit te wachten of in ieder geval niets aan het doen bent. Wanneer er dan nieuwe vragen zijn, krijg je dan in die tijd een sms. Daarin zit een link en met een beetje telefoon heb je dan zo de enquête voor je. De vragen beantwoorden gaat dan heel gemakkelijk. Je betaalt niet voor het smsje, natuurlijk wel voor je eigen internet (zelf heb ik een onbeperkt abbo dus geen extra kosten).

De values
Je krijgt in het begin een stuk of 30 values, en afhankelijk van het moment waarop je instroomt zijn er een aantal vragenlijsten die je zo kunt doorlopen. Gemiddeld krijg je 10 values per vragenlijst. Tevens krijg je 20 values als je iemand aanmeldt, maar daar zit een maximum op (en er is geen piramide constructie dus je krijgt niets extra wanneer de mensen die jij hebt aangebracht meer vragen beantwoorden).

De kado's
De kadoshop is zeer uitgebreid. Je kunt producten geheel met values betalen, dus dat zijn dan echt je verdiensten. Elk kado heeft een prijs in values. Die beginnen bij +/- 300 values (setje gereedschap, oordopjes) en lopen op tot bijna 10.000 (plasma TV). Een beetje interessante kado's beginnen ergens bij 1500-3000 values.


De keerzijde
De hoeveelheid tijd die je erin moet stoppen om values te verdienen vind ik, mede door de opzet en het gebruiksgemak, best laag (kan prima op de looproute van de bushalte naar mijn eindbestemming). Het probleem is dat het aanbod in vragensessies zeer beperkt is. Ik doe nu 3 maanden aan alles mee en zit tegen de 300 values aan. Daarmee kun je net een rolmaat 'kopen'. Gezien het feit dat een deel hiervan de 'beginspurt' is geweest, kom je dus per jaar op max 1000 values, hoe fanatiek je ook bent. Values zijn max 2 jaar geldig. Dus die plasma TV van 10.000 values is per definitie nooit en te nimmer haalbaar.

En ook al waren die values onbeperkt houdbaar, dan nog ben je afhankelijk van het voortbestaan van het bedrijf, wil je voor grotere zaken sparen. .

Conclusie

Het principe van valuewait is alleraardigst, maar het gebrek aan vragenlijsten maakt slechts interessant voor de aanhouder, op de lange termijn. Bovendien is het uitzicht op hele grote kado's nul door de beperkte houdbaarheid van de values.

Logitech Harmony 650 Review

Logitech Harmony 650 universal remote
Nowadays Logitech has a wide range of universal remotes. The top ones I find too expensive, the cheap ones lack the cool functions I want. This one is somewhere in the middle. The main limitation is that it can only control 5 devices.

Looks and stuff
The remote looks OK. It also feels okay although I have to get used to the fact that the numpad is at the bottom. There's tons of reviews that go into depth about all this. For me it's exteriors are just fine enough to worry only about what it can do.

Screen

The screen displays colors. It is not a touch screen. Instead, four buttons (two at each side) are related to the respective parts of the remote control. Buttons below the screen allow you to go to the next page with 'screen items'. The buttons and the screen are backlit, which is nice in the dark. When you pick it up, it lights up. When you leave it for a while, it dims again.


Universal remote
For starters, the Harmony remotes are universal. This means that they can replace other remotes. The accompanying software (more about that later) gives access to a huge database of devices. This database is quite extensive, I found my DVR, Asus HTPC and TV in there. Whenever your device is not present, you can 'learn' the Logitech Harmony 650 new tricks. I tried it for the remote that shipped with my cheapy cheapy RGB Led Lamp and it worked just fine. It takes some time to set up, but then it works flawlessly. Switching between devices is done using the screen-buttons. Btw: the Harmony 650 only works for IR (infrared) signals.

Non-standard functions
Some functions, such as play, OK, numbers, etc you will find on most remotes, so these you can map (well, if your remote is in the database, this is all done for you) one-on-one with your Harmony's buttons. The more unusual functions are all available via the screen buttons.

Activities
At the top of the remote, there's buttons for specific activities. Using the software, you can configure which devices are in use during such activities, and which are turned off. Also, the screen can display activity-related functions. A nice feature I find adding your favorite  (multidigit) channels to the display, depicted by a custom image you can upload to the device, per channel. Another nice feature is that whenever an activity is selected, every individual button can be appointed to any of the devices (active during that activity). For instance, you can configure the play/pause buttons to control your DVR, the numbers to control your receiver and the volume up/down buttons to control your TV itself.

Customize
What I like so much about the remote, and what is not made clear enough in the reviews I could find, is the amount of customization you can do. You can map freely between original-remote functions and buttons on your device, or buttons on the screen. The latter ones you can also shuffle around, remove, or add, including their captions. I already mentioned the pictures for TV channels.


Software
The Harmony Remote 650 can be connected to the computer using USB. The software is only available for Windows and Mac (not Linux :s). At first glance, and for novice users, the software is very user friendly. Almost everything is set up via wizards and a lot of 'thinking' is done for you. For experienced users this is less practical: I would prefer a little but more conventional configuration interface. I noticed this for instance when trying to add an 'play music' activity, for which I use my TV and a connected PC. However the software didn't recognize any ('traditional') music-playing devices and didn't let me create this activity. In the end, I created a custom activity, appointed the TV and PC to that activity, configured  both to be on and the TV set at the HDMI-1 input channel and appointed some buttons to the PC and some to the TV. Finally I connected this custom activity to the 'Play Music' activity button and renamed it to 'Play Music'. Same result, different route.

On/Off management
The remote tries to manage powering on and off all devices for you. There's only one power button which turns everything off that's still on. Switching between activities means turning off some devices and turning on others (of course some stay on, or stay off, as well). Since most devices are turned on and off with one button, the remote has to remember the state of all devices. It must also rely on all signals reaching all devices (signals are in some cases sent one by one, so you have to keep your remote pointed to the system). Although it seems a nice feature I found it more a curse than a blessing. Luckily the per-device power functions are still available via the screen.

Help Function
The remote can display hints and help on screen if you want to. This 'assistant' will ask you if all devices are actually turned off when you press power off, and assists to fix this if needed. I deactivated the assistant from day one.