Willy Dobbe - weird

Legostorms solves Rubiks cube

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:39:17 +0100

Tilted Twister solves Rubik’s cube fully automatically.
Just place the scrambled cube on Tilted Twister’s turntable. An ultrasonic sensor detects its presence and starts to read the colors of the cube faces using a light sensor. The robot turns and tilts the cube in order to read all the faces. It then calculates a solution and executes the moves by turning, tilting and twisting the cube.

Cool! I like nerd gadgets like these. If you can make it fast, it might be in time for my Birthday... today :-)

Halbe Zijlstra heeft lekker veel visietjes (not)

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:33:01 +0100

Ik heb het niet zo op mensen die continue in verkleinwoordjes praten. Zeker niet om de ander te ridiculiseren.

Neem nu het nieuws op NU.nl over Plasterk die redelijk baanbrekende ideeen lanceert voor de overheid/onderwijs.

Zijlstra stelt: "Plasterk komt met een plannetje met een prijs, dat is kenschetsend voor zijn totale gebrek aan visie op het hoger onderwijs".

Je mag het niet eens zijn met de plannen om beloning op een onconventionele manier te doen, maar het is niet "een plannetje zonder visietje". In fact, voor een ieder die niet in de overheidssector werkt is het heel gewoon om beloond te worden nadat je iets gepresteerd hebt, ipv vooraf. En de nieuwe kijk (ook wel bekend als visie) is dus ook voor de raampolitici van de VVD niet in te beelden.

Dus van Plasterk kan je van alles vinden, maar visie heeft ie genoeg, zie de 166 resutaten op zijn site.

Nee, dan onze Halbe. Das een visionair van formaat. Kijk maar eens wat die allemaal heeft op zijn site. 1 (een!) artikel namelijk een inside in stukje van 10 regels.

. Zelf ben ik bezig om een visie neer te zetten waar de VVD de komende vier jaar mee vooruit kan.

Leuk dat je een visie maakt waar de VVD mee vooruit kan. Maar je geeft hiermee wel weer dat je neus redelijk dicht bij je navel zit! Nederland heeft niets aan een visie waar de VVD mee vooruit kan. Tijd om

Op juiste manier oppositie te voeren (inhoudelijk)
Zelf een visie voor Nederland neer te zetten ipv voor je partij

Jammer Halbe Zijlstra! Rechsdragende schapen met een een blinddoek om.

Slide to unlock T Shirt

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:27:55 +0100

(thinkgeek)

The Netherlands LOVES Drupal

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:09:31 +0100

One for Dries to add to his Drupal sites examples:
http://www.town.nederland.co.us/ (hint) yes. A Drupalsite for sure!

You see, the Netherlands LOVE Drupal and that is why we are trying to bring this love in the form of a DrupalCon to Maastricht in 2009. Be sure to checkout one of the floor plans as well.

Note: It has not been decided yet where the next DrupalCon in the EU will be held. If you feel like organising the DrupalCon 2009 in another town, please see the guidelines of the Drupal Association and get a passionate group together to tender!

KPN bashing iPhone (je wordt niet groot door anderen te kleineren)

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:44:09 +0200

Ik begrijp KPN niet. Ze maken de mooiste reclame campagnes van Nederland, melken het precies ver genoeg uit. Neem bijvoorbeeld de goedemoggel campagne; een hit over heel Nederland!

En toen deze net niet meer kon, werd hij van de buis gehaald. Maar na een paar maanden -precies op tijd- gewoon versie twee:

Ook andere uitingen van KPN zijn altijd goed. Zo rijden er duizenden autos rond van KPN met campagne teksten, hebben ze mooie namen voor diensten ("flexibel") en weet men gewoon al jaren hoe men B2B en B2C marketing moet bedrijven: echte marketeers met verstand!

Wat ik dan niet begrijp is dat er schijnbaar sub afdelingkjes zijn die zelf autonoom wat mogen aankloten in de marge. En dan krijg je dus dit soort advertenties online:

(adwords op Google)

(reclame op Amazon)

en op duizenden andere plekken vond je en week of twee geleden anti reclames tegen KPN, want zo zal de gemiddelde cosument het zien. Negatieve reclames worden geassocieerd met de aanbieder, niet met de concurrent.

De iPhone is een fantastisch apparaat, dat kan je niet afzeiken. Als je dat wel doet, dan plas je tegen de wind in terwijl je probeert te mikken op de digital bohemian. Twee keer dom, toppers moet je niet afzeiken, ze bepalen de maat en opmaat. En tegen de wind in plassen, dat maakt dat je raar gaat ruiken (heb ik me laten vertellen :-) )

Dus KPN, niet huilebalken dat je de geweldige iPhone deal niet hebt gekregen, maar gewoon goede dingen doen.

"Dries is selling out!", all follow the New Leader

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:23:25 +0200

Open Source. Simple in principle yet can become very complex. For example Open Source is build by volunteers who do it for many reasons but for most "ego" is one of the important reasons. And since the value that created is so high, "money" is often another reason to use (and contribute) to open source. Ego, Money and Open Source, a match made in a very warm place.

Acquia is one of the companies that is acting within the triangle money, ego and Open Source / community. Not that Dries has a big ego, but he is a person / icon in the Drupal community and hence people look at him and his "ego". And the moment you are in this triangle -despite the fact that you have been working "for free" for 7 years in such a community- people will try to seek ugly things.

Take for example this wordpress blog entry. It is full of nonsense and maybe I should turn my head and look the other way and not comment on it per point since the complete point is nonsense, but then again, if people keep writing nonsense without being put straight, other people might actually hear the echo of "nonsense" as "sense".

Let me start commenting on some of the nonsense:

Acquia then announced Certifications and Partner Program. But now the most recent job postings show they are getting into Professional Services. This clearly shows that Dries and Acquia has started to find any possible avenue to monetize the brand Drupal. And as they add more offerings, the community feels more and more cheated!

Great detective work, and yes, the WP blogger is speaking on behalf of "the community" and (s)he feels cheated on. I would say, If you feel cheated on, talk to your partner.First, if there is a brand "Drupal" then I can not see why monetizing it would be bad. I know lots and lots of companies that make money with Drupal without ever giving anything back, code wise or money wise. They are free to do so, but the moment ego Dries does it, it is a problem. Once again, talk to your partner if you feel cheated on but do not talk for the community from your anonymous WP blog

Why does the community continue to improve and contribute code back when Acquia having bigger marketing budgets and despite being relatively new is being projected as the goto Drupal shop.

Because Acquia is -like al OSS shops- the shoulders of the community. And it is in the interest of Acquia to make this community better, faster and bigger so Acquia will raise as well. Acquia stands on the shoulders of giants, but is not pissing down its neck.

Where would Acquia have been had there been no Dries?

No Dries in Acquia? Then it would be a company (like it is now). No Dries in Drupal, then maybe within another OSS project. Where would Acqia be if the parents of Dries never met? I can not see what rhetorical questions like these ad anything to the discussion. And think about this for one minute: what if Dries decided NOT to work full time proffsional on Drupal but on another proprietary JAVA CMS?

Will Acquia release all the code they are building to the community? Can there be another “Carbon” like product if someone else puts in $10mm investment and compete with Acquia?

Yes and yes. Mind you, Acquia sells services, not code. The "Give away the recipe, open up a restaurant" model. Up to now, Dries made very clear that all code that is distributed (!) is under the GPLicense, copyrighted by Acquia or not, and they will distribute it under the GPL, see also the excellent license FAQ. I would say, raise 10M and compete with Acquia, you are free to do so.

Dries owns the “Drupal” trademark and also is a key stakeholder in Acquia. Will this not create a conflict in community who now see Acquia as a threat on any work they do?

The trademark "Drupal" is owned by Dries and protected by th Drupal Association. The upcoming policy for trademark policy will be the same for Acquia as it will be for SmallDrupalShop.

There are many Drupal Local User Groups where lot of innovation is planned, architected as well as later released back. Will this slow down? Why has there been no stable Drupal 6 upgrades of many good Drupal 5 contributed modules even months after Drupal 6 release? Has the community lost interest?

Once again, totally irrelevant for the Dries-is-in-Acquia-and-now-the-sky-falls-on-our-head discussion. CCK, Views2 and the D6 discussion have nothing todo with this. You know about CCK right?

Joomla was forked from Mambo. Will we see a new leader in Drupal who truely has interest in product and not get swayed away with commercial interests?

If Dries would piss down the neck of the Drupal Community this will happen, Darwin! And you are free to become The Leader With True Interest in the Product, please do so all the lemmings will follow you Great Leader. Since Dries is /clearly/ selling out and not working many many hours per week for "nothing" on Drupal (code, association and community)

Dries now does not seem to have time for Drupal.

Yes, only 21 status updates the last 24 hours despite Drupal Association meetings, attending a full DrupalCon, running his company and talking to dozen of people. Clearly no time for Drupal.

Please, stop trying pissing down on others with your zipper still up, it smells bad and makes you look funny.

Speed painting of F1 Crash (with droste effect)

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:12:32 +0200

Okay, I do not do often simple post with just an embedded video, but this once is great and a must see:

Learn how to draw at 5min.com

Droste, funny, well done and an option to see how paintings like these are being made in photoshop.

(RSS readers: goto 5min.com)

Milf Lane

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:08:08 +0200

While on holliday, I had some old spooks episodes with me we watched.. Not that I did too much time behind the laptop but still, no laptop for two weeks is a bit too much

Spooks is an excellent show (wiki lemma); Kudos and BBC at its best. I watched epsiode 5, year 4 called "the book" and there is this shot:

Milf lane... Time to get cruising towards miranda raison

Tri iPhone pong

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:24:12 +0200

What do you get when three nerds meet together? Or how many nerds does it take to play pong?

Trots op Nederland, de game

Sat, 17 May 2008 15:36:51 +0200

Zou Hasbro (makers van Trivial Pursuit) dan een van de sponsoren zijn van de lilliputter Rita? Of is het de tijdsgeest die maakt dat we zoeken naar gezichten en relikwie-en van de provincie Nederland?

iRetroPhone

Mon, 12 May 2008 11:23:05 +0200

A retro dialer look for you iPhone. Sure it is funny.. For two seconds and then you know why you switched in the early 90-ies.

I wonder if you could do some old skool Phone Phreaking with this. "Alu"Boxing anyone?

Veul klei-en

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:57:02 +0200

Ook dit jaar was de curcus klei-en "het hoeft niet mooi te zijn als het maar veel is" weer succesvol door talloze cursisten afgerond.

The GPL is the GPL... for good and bad (and even Ugly!)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:19:29 +0200

Today I got a "follow" from Podblanc on my twitter account. I get dayly followers I do not know, mosty stupid bots disguised as attractive girls that folow 5k people and have 20 followers (extreem stupid people who fail the Turning test ).

I always checkout my followers before follwing them, and it looked that this podblanc was human and ... is running a Drupal site at podblanc.com.

There are days that I feel proud. Proud to be part of a community that builds software that helps people to communicate. Proud to be in that community from the early days. So I have seen the tech communities that embraced Drupal as a tool to communicate. And then gave the media companies -new and old media- that had a good and cheap option to facilitate users. And then came the (from US PoV liberal) political parties in the US that enabled relativly unknown persons to run for president-candidate. Then the small local communities around churches, local red cross organisations and even the big ones like Amnesty. And I am proud that I was a very very small part in the world that enabled this.

But I never NEVER have been "proud" to be white. I never thought that one race, religion or sex is superiour above another. I have the luck to have old parents, who have been through what in central Europe is called "The War" (World War II) and have told me about the horrors. I have had the luck to have travelled around the world to see other people, get in touch with other cultures and to have visited Auschwitz. I know the horrors, I know the pain, I know about the waste of lifes.

I am not the hating kind of person, but somewhere deep in me, I hate people who hate people. And yes I do understand the paradox there. But I am not to keen on right winged Neo Nazi's who refuse to learn from the past, or even to accept the past.

So I am not proud that this white-site is using Drupal. I am sad that we created something that can be misused in this way. But like any tool, it can be used for good and bad. It is the person holding the knife that decides to create a sculpture or go for the kill, not the maker of the knife.

Sometime.. just like now. I wish the GPL was "a bit discriminating" for who it was legal to use and for who not. But you can not have a "bit of freedom"; you have it or you dont. And if that is what we are facing, I am proud that I am part of a freedom where stupid white (or black) people can say stupid things about (white or) black people ... using Drupal.

Proud but with a bad taste in my mouth.

BSOD on my MIO navigation

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:16:31 +0200

Some time ago I bought a MIO navigation for my car. In my new job I travel a lot more and visit more customers so having a car navigation was really needed. And due to the heavy traffic in the Netherlands, I really need the traffic jam information as well. So I bought a MIO 230. It is working fine but it is completly aimed at Windows users. I have lots of machines in my home, but no Windows boxes anymore.

So I can not update the information regarding the traffic cameras, that is a Windows only program (and I will not run paralells for just that). And as you can see on this picture, the box itself is running Windows as well, so this semi BSOD was bound to happen; I needed to hard reset the box. I should have bought a real TomTom, at least it is running Linux!

Hell on the iPhone

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:15:22 +0100

I can image that when you life in Cupertino New York might be considered to be an unfriendly place. But to call it...

Other weirdness: searching for Drupal (in the Weather application) will lead you to Dourbali, Chad and Boerland to Brilliant, OH. Great application!