Oh wow, I have a new phone. It’s an android phone. The samsung Galaxy S. I had the phone lying around for a month but now it’s finally activated. Still reachable under the same number though. That’s why I had to wait.

Oh boy what a pleasure to work with. It has swype text input. This allows you to just swipe your finger or in my case my thumb over the keyboard. Single finger and fast text input. Very convenient.

Although I do like apple products and I was definitely considering to go iphone4 I decided to go android. First of all: I already have an ipod touch which is basically an iphone without the ability to make a phone call. So getting the iphone would not really be a new experience. So I go for the both worlds option. iOs and android. Let’s see what will turn out to be the better choice. So far so good: I love the samsung galaxy S.

Whahahaha.. brilliant. Rop Gonggrijp is at it again. Together with some researchers he like totally p0wnez Indian voting machines. Rop already demonstrated that dutch voting machines are inherently unsafe. Check the site “Wij vertrouwen stemcomputers niet” (English). That is the reason why we (again) vote with red pencil and paper in the Netherlands. Now in India they will probably do the same thing. Looking for a career change? How about manufacturing red pencils… India will need a couple anytime soon. Here’s a cool video that can also be found on Rop’s site.

Ben ik nou gek? Word ik gewoon oud? Of ligt het toch niet helemaal aan mij?

Now take a look at this: Mike Davey built a Turing Machine. And what a beauty it is… What? Don’t know what a Turing machine is? And you don’t know who Alan Turing is? Well no one special: he just happened to kickstart automated computing by formalizing algorithms , computability and programmable machines as we know it today. That’s all. Jeez what’s wrong with you?

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Here are some more videos of different programs the Turing Machine is executing.

Je krabbelt de huidige datum bovenaan een pagina waarop je wat aantekeningen van een meeting maakt en dan besef  je ineens dat vandaag een palindroom dag is. Jaaa vrienden… 1 februari 2010 wordt in de lage landen geschreven als 01-02-2010 en dat is van links naar rechts gelezen hetzelfde als van rechts naar links oftewel: een palindroom.

Je hebt er niets aan… het blijft een rotdag… maar toch…

Oh my goodness, take a look at this. You like to play the old fashioned boardgames like Settlers of Catan? Yet you don’t want to appear as the oldtimer that you actually are? Maybe you should go OLED like some researchers of the Queens University did. Digital game pieces rock the world. Check the article on cnet and watch this great video. They use projection in the video but you’ll get the idea

This will make a lot of games more exciting… well except for solving a puzzle since you can just throw the pieces on the table and let the oleds display the image correctly.

Oh now… as a fractal lover (especially the Mandelbrot set) I was amazed at the 3D extension of the mandelbrot set which they dubbed the Mandelbulb. Here you can find detailed information on the set. But maybe you don’t care for formula’s… you just want the images? I have to sink my teeth into this puppy for  a while before I fully understand how this is created. Meanwhile here’s a nice video of the mandelbulb. Fractal dimensions now in 3D… what a day…

Oooh nee toch.. “accordion”…. denk je bij accordionmuziek ook aan geforceerd lachend vrolijk meezwierende pippo’s die oubollige deuntjes staan te trekken? Moet je dit eens zien… nee echt…
Vivaldi – de vier jaargetijden – zomer…. op een accordion…. kick ass kid!

Link gevonden via de twitter van Jewel Kilcher.

Some people have too much time on their hands… thank the übernerd for that!
Only the background should be black and the ladders should be blue… but what I’m a nagging about? Great job!!

and there’s more classic games in LEGO

Oh this is a dream come true: I finally got promoted. Where I work I’m part of a large department. To allow people to get acquainted they introduced a who-is-who directory where you can lookup people by name. There’s even a photograph for facial recognition.

After being urged to submit my information and photo by email I entered my information and included a photoshopped (actually “gimped”) photograph where I gave myself large dark alien eyes. Since I figured my submission would be rejected anyway I entered my function to be “SME / Technical Theo”. To my big surprise the entry was copied verbatim into the directory including the photo. So now it’s official: I’m a Technical Theo at last… and an alien. Now I wish I’d put down “MacGyver” as function…

Oh well, maybe you’ve already seen this but this morning a coworker showed me a nice easter-egg in firefox. Just type ‘about:robots‘ in the address bar of firefox (or click the link, duh!). For those who want to short-sell themselves and don’t use firefox I put a screenshot below. Also check the name of the page “Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!“…

Jaaa je weet dat je het altijd al hebt willen hebben en ik weet dat ook. Dus hier is je kans!  Het blad “New Scientist” heeft een prijsvraag ter ere van het 40-jarig jubileum van de maanlanding. De hoofdprijs is een stuk maansteen. En meedoen is zo simpel… zo simpel… Je hoeft alleen maar een betere text te verzinnen die Neil Armstrong had kunnen zeggen in plaats van: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

En dat kun jij… Dat kun jij beter dan ik. Het mag iets cultureels zijn:

High diddle diddle,
The Cat and the Fiddle,
The Cow jump’d over the Moon

Of iets diepzinnigs:

E=mc², where E=earth, m=moon, c=cow that jumped over the m

Of iets grappigs (of een poging daartoe):

Hi Honey, I’m actually in a tv studio, I’ll be home for dinner tonight.

Kortom… Win die maansteen.

I always liked the extremely funny musical parodies of Weird Al Yankovic. I recently found out that Weird Al is on twitter. He twitters about all & nothing. So read about how he has been recording some new songs in the studio. I especially like the photos he’s making. For instance 9 days ago he met Ray Manzarek, the legendary keyboard player/composer from The Doors… Who doesn’t love the brilliant organ solo in “Break on through” and “Light my Fire”?

And look-a-here who he has also met… captain Kirk. Oh boy, how exciting life is when you ride the rollercoaster instead of watching it from the ground. There’s even a picture of Al cutting himself while shaving… how’s that for glamour?

Oh this is very nice. I just came across this geek hack that plays the Super Mario tune using the stepper motor of a laser cutter. Now they actually use both axis. One for the tune the other for the bass parts. A truly amazing hack found through hackday.com. Even the ruby source code is available through the link.

Oh this is nice. A small video of a simulation what you would see if you were falling into a blackhole… well until you hit the singularity itself.. that is still a mystery. But if you happen to fall into a blackhole please drop a line and tell me what happens next…