Note to self: find out if it is possible in Firefox to search selected text on Google without invoking the context menu. Searching selected text should be almost as easy as clicking a link. If this is not possible, find a extension that turns selected text into a hyperlink to a Google query. If that … Read More
I moved the site on which this blog is hosted to a different hoster. Please let me know if anything got b0rked in the process.
I was there.
In 2000 I moved from my place of study, Nijmegen, to Amsterdam. Since renting a 1,000 foot place in ‘the province’ (as they say here) is about as expensive as renting a shoebox in Amsterdam, I had to leave a lot of stuff behind. I gave away a vanful to students (my piano, my sofas, … Read More
Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter, has been terraformed, and enough time has passed to accept pioneers to homestead a piece of land. The conditions are horrible; lose access to outside (read: Earthly) help, and you are condemned to a certain death. But at least you get a chance to get away from overcrowded planet Earth. … Read More
Robert Louis Stevenson complains that he cannot read Treasure Island; a pity, he feels, because from what he is told, it would be just the sort of book he’d like: I want to hear swords clash. I want a book to begin in a good way; a book, I guess, like Treasure Island, alas! which … Read More
If anything, I find the results of the Dutch parliamentary elections confusing. Several one-issue parties sprung up (Party for the Animals, who are for animals, and Party for Freedom, who hate anybody who’s not lily-white), but we’re also back to a situation where we have four major parties, two to the left and two to … Read More
The Robber Bride is a very, very, very slow book. It could have easily been told in 50 pages instead of the 528 it took. The blurbs bubble on about how witty and funny it is; I guess I completely missed what this novel is about. But perhaps I can re-tell the surface story; we … Read More
Abstract: there is no such thing as registered mail for e-mail. Such a thing would be simple to set up though, and perhaps we’re beginning to need it? I have to deal with an organisation these days that conveniently “fails” to receive important mail from me; so far they have done so twice in September. … Read More
They say voters are swayed more by presentation and looks than by actual politics. A good-looking politician is considered a weapon in the battle for votes. But how well do our politicians look if you unleash their pictures on an unsuspecting audience, on people who have never heard of these candidates before? The Writer’s Block … Read More