Previous week I went to Frankfurt, to the FIDIS general meeting, where I had to give a short presentation about the work we did. I didn’t have a lot of time afterwards, but at least I got make some pictures during the night:
Saturday March 21st we went to see Booker T. & the MG’s; you can find a review here. It was much more crowded than the previous week, when John Cale and Vic Chesnutt performed. I didn’t bring my camera, but instead I borrowed some pictures from the previously mentioned site.
My review: they were awesome, and I got to hear my favourite songs (Green Onions and Hip Hug Her).
Yesterday we went to see John Cale and Vic Chesnutt in ‘het Paard van Troje’ in the Hague; Vic Chesnutt performed together with Elf Power. John played really passionate, it really was wonderful to see him perform. He played some older songs like ‘Fear’, ‘Amsterdam’, ‘Paris 1919′, Dying on the vine’, ‘Pablo Picasso’ and ‘Things’ from a recent album. Especially ‘Amsterdam’ gave me some shivers the way he sang it. Wonderful.
The second performer we came to see, Vic Chesnutt, played together with Elf Power. They played a lot of songs from their ‘Dark Developments’ album. Vic was really relaxed and laidback.
Here are some pics:
Previous weekend I visited some refugees from Holland who moved to Grenoble; I smuggled some contraband syrup waffles over the border … I have to admit I was a little afraid, but it was for the greater good. On the other hand, I wasn’t yet ready to die like a martyr. Luckily, all went well, and the waffles disappeared from the radar in a few days.
The town and its surroundings are really nice; it’s located in a valley, which is a nice change from holland where everything’s flat.
Here are some pics; I forgot to make a picture of Grenoble at night though :(.
I again want to thank C&G for their hospitality :)
We went to Milan for Christmas; I think it was a much needed rest for the both of us. It was pretty cold, but the sky was blue most of the time, and only had a brief period of rain when we arrived at the airport.
The Duomo is really nice; the amount of details is really impressive. You can see for yourself:
The hotel was really nice as well, so it was a happy end of the year .. maybe I should start looking for the next holiday :).
Previous thursday (December 11) we went to see the Black Angels in Paradiso. It was pretty neat, and the crowd was appreciative as well. The sound was ok, but the volume of the voice was too weak. But the droning was still pretty nice, so it was not a big problem :P.
On saturday (Nov. 1) we went to see Mogwai in the Oosterpoort, Groningen. We saw them before, but it was already a long time ago, and I didn’t listen to their music for a long time. Still, it was nice to see them in such a small town. It was fairly crowded, but I don’t think it sold-out. They played really well, much better than I remembered from the previous time.
Here are some pics, from here
Two days after that, on monday Nov 3rd, we went to see the poet of all poets, Leonard Cohen. We’d seen him in July already, but after seeing him once we couldn’t let the chance go by to see him one more time. Charming and humble as ever, he played for approximately 3 hours, so we were lucky it was a seated show. We weren’t allowed to bring our camaras, but here are some pro images. The sound quality in Ahoy still sucks, but Cohen’s sound engineers made it suck much less than with the Cure.
I have some catching up to do. At the start of september I moved to The Hague, and this very day we finally got internet.
A few weeks ago, there was a kiting contest in Scheveningen, including kite-fighting. There were some nice kites, like
And I got this shot, which I liked for some reason:
Last saturday we got some free tickets from a friend to see China Impressions, a sort of history lesson visualized with the help of dance and acrobatics. I’d never been to something like this before, but I really liked it. We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the show, so I only did it once before they asked me to stop. But we were allowed backstage, which was really nice, and where we could make some pictures instead.
The first part of the show before I was told I couldn't make any pictures ;)
And a pic from Amsterdam:
Yesterday I had to defend my internship report; everything went better than I could’ve expected. I almost couldn’t stop talking, and my presentation was between 45-50 minutes (while 20 minutes was sufficient). Anyway, the questions afterwards were not that difficult, and all in all they were happy with the way I had worked during my internship.
Now I’m at my parents for a few days, and when I was goofing around with one of our cats, I had the chance to stare right into the belly of the beast:
Straight into the belly of the beast
Although this happened even before visiting Leonard Cohen in the Westerpark, I didn’t mention it before: my lovely parents bought me a Canon EOS 400D. It’s a gift for my graduation, so hopefully I won’t disappoint them later this month. The EOS 400D is more compact than I’d imagined, but it still has all the advantages of a SLR.
I had to get used to all the possibilities, it’s all just a little different from the Canon Powershot A95 I used before. But here are some great shots (the perfect sunset was captured by my brother, it’s my new header for the site):
(please view at full resolution; it’s much better that way)
Approximately 2 weeks ago, we saw Leonard Cohen performing in the Westerpark (Amsterdam). He was really charming, suave (especially with his hat), and was very generous to the band and to the public. He did two sets, after which he came back for the encores. He was such a passionate singer, clenching his fist, sitting on his knee… Truly a wonderful performance.
I’m happy to say we’ll see him at least one more time, in the beginning of November. The bad news is he’ll perform in Ahoy, of which I’m not too fond (sound quality was very bad the last time). But I have confidence that the soundguy from Leonard Cohen will amaze me like he did in the Westerpark. And we have much better seats now, so all in all I’m optimistic.
Setlist:
Dance Me to the End of Love
The Future
Ain’t No Cure for Love
Bird on the Wire
Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen/Sharon Robinson)
In My Secret Life (Leonard Cohen/Sharon Robinson)
Who by Fire
Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye
Anthem
Tower of Song
Suzanne
Gypsy Wife
Boogie Street (with Sharon Robinson)
Hallelujah
Democracy
I’m Your Man
Take This Waltz (Leonard Cohen after Federico Garcia Lorca)
Encores:
So Long, Marianne
First We Take Manhattan
Sisters of Mercy
If It Be Your Will
Closing Time
I Tried to Leave You
Whither Thou Goest
Last weekend (Sunday, May 11th) we went to see Roger Waters in Landgraaf. As Landgraaf is at the other side of the Netherlands (judged from Groningen, Friesland and Amsterdam) we decided to stay in Maastricht for a couple of days (friday to monday). We had a great time (and nice weather!) exploring the city and surroundings. On sunday we went to see Roger Waters performing the complete ‘dark side of the moon’ -album, along with some songs from his own carreer and some Pink Floyd songs. The performance was nothing short of phenomenal; a lot of visual effects along with explosions, flying pigs, large screens, a giant prism, excellent sound (the quadrophonic system used made that you could hear explosions from all directions during e.g. ‘Bring the boys back home’), and an enthusiastic Roger and band.
Some reviews (mostly in Dutch) can be found here.
I had a great time, and if I ever get the chance to see him again, I’ll be there.
The band consisted of:
Roger Waters – Bass And Vocals
Carol Kenyon – Backing Vocals
Chester Kamen – Guitars And Bass
Dave Kilminster – Guitar And Vocals
Graham Broad – Drums
Harry Waters – Hammond Organ
Ian Ritchie – Saxophone
Jon Carin – Keyboards And Vocals
PP Arnold – Backing Vocals
Snowy White – Guitar
Sylvia Mason James – Backing Vocals
Setlist:
Set 1:
In the Flesh
Mother
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Shine On You Crazy Diamond Parts I-V
Have a Cigar
Wish You Were Here
Southampton Dock
The Fletcher Memorial Home
Perfect Sense, Part I
Perfect Sense, Part II
Leaving Beirut
Sheep
Set 2:
Speak to Me
Breathe
On the Run
Time
Breathe (reprise)
The Great Gig in the Sky
Money
Us and Them
Any Colour You Like
Brain Damage
Eclipse
Encore:
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick in The Wall Part II
Vera
Bring the Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb
Some pics from this show are shown below. Although we were not that far removed from the stage (though we couldn’t count Roger’s wrinkles), most of the photos suck. Erik Luyten did it a lot better (maybe press -entrance?). Well, here they are: (The bottom 2 photos were made by Erik; see his Flickr page).
(The gallery is a little fucked-up; it doesn’t take you directly to the full -size image … )
Last Saturday we went to see TSMZMO&TB in Tivoli, Utrecht (Oudegracht). They mostly played songs from their new album ‘13 blues for thirteen moons’, but also played ‘Microphones in the trees’ (from the ‘Pretty Little Lightning Paw’ album), ‘Metal Bird’ (yet unreleased), and ‘Hang on to Each Other (from ‘Horses in the Sky’).
We arrived a little bit later than I expected, so most of the seats were already taken, which meant we had to sit in the back. I tried to make some pictures, but as usual, it was very dark and I had to zoom. I tried to improve it somewhat with photoshop, and a conversion to black&white.
Some pictures from
flickr :
Almost two weeks ago, on March 18, we went to see The Cure in Rotterdam. I won’t complain about their performance, which was solid and long (more than 3 hours), but the sound quality in Ahoy was terrible. The newspapers didn’t complain about the sound quality, saying it was marvelous, but at least where we were seated the sound was boomy and not loud enough. The batteries of my camera were empty before I had shot a decent picture, so I’m putting up some downloaded pictures made by others. I’ll bring some extra batteries for the “Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-la-la-band” -concert next week (April 5) :P.
Oh yes, the support act was 65 Days of static; we’ve seen them before, but now their set was very short (or we were much too late). I didn’t like their performance (for what I’ve seen of it); much less impressive than the previous time. But the acoustics were probably the culprit for this as well.
Reminder: Ahoy’s sound quality sucks.
Setlist:
plainsong
prayers for rain
a strange day
alt.end
the walk
the end of the world
lovesong
pictures of you
lullaby
from the edge of the deep green sea
kyoto song
hot hot hot!!!
please project
push
inbetween days
just like heaven
primary
a boy i never knew
maybe someday
never enough
wrong number
one hundred years
disintegration
- “six popsongs or four Faith songs? or both?” -
Encore 1:
the lovecats
let’s go to bed
friday i’m in love
freak show
close to me
why can’t i be you?
Encore 2:
three imaginary boys
fire in cairo
boys don’t cry
jumping someone else’s train
grinding halt
10:15 saturday night
killing an arab
Encore 3:
faith
a forest
This blog may appear to be dead (probably not too far off) because I’m very busy doing my internship, and the traveling doesn’t help either.
Anyway, concert-wise, this is going to be a good year. In a few days we’ll see The Cure, a few weeks after that A Silver Mt. Zion, then Roger Waters and Leonard Cohen. Massive Attack, REM, and Radiohead will also perform in the Westerpark near my room. Needless to say, a very exciting time!
Last friday (november 9) we went to see Mono in Haarlem (Patronaat). They were simply amazing, the great dynamic between the melodic intros and the deafening white noise were almost hypnotizing.
Of course, I made some pictures; I really start to see the limitations of my Powershot A95. High ISO with a low shutter speed aren’t the best ingredients for concert photography. Nevertheless, I’m quite satisfied with these pictures: (low jpeg quality and low resolution because of wordpress-limitations on space)
I made some pictures yesterday (well, quite a lot actually), but in the end I only like this one. I like the contrast between nature and industry. Makes you feel we really own the world, that the earth is ours. We’re invading nature’s territory.
They’re a little different, but mostly it’s the processing that makes them look different.
I finally finished my course on Quantum Optics; in the book we used was a question about the “number of photons per unit volume excited in a cavity at temperature T” (Loudon, Quantum Theory of Light). After deriving a formula for this, you can show that the cosmic background radiation contains about 4-5*10^5 photons per litre.
I always got stuck at the same point, but now I finally know how to solve this.
Read the attached pdf if you want to know the solution.
Although we’re back in Holland for quite some time, I still wanted to show some pictures I made Marseille.
View of the Vieux Port in Marseille, at night:
Left: Front view of the Église Saint Vincent de Paul dite des Réformés, a block away from our apartment
Right: Cathédrale La Major
The left picture was taken from Fort St. Jean, which you see on the second picture. In the background you see the Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde.
This was taken on the beach; I just liked the nice blue colour.
Some pictures from the mountains; Callelonge and Calanques. On the last picture you see a bay where we swam.
Finally, a hooker who was prancing ‘our’ street daily; and a somewhat vague picture made at the Vieux Port (but I liked the reflections):
There’s an article in Scientific American (July 2007) about the relation between global warming and hurricanes. I learned a few things from this:
A cyclone, typhoon and hurricane are the same thing; they only differ in the region where they are observed.
How do hurricanes form?
The different seasons play a role as well:
The energy released when raindrops form heats the atmosphere
Further ingredients needed to start a hurricane:
The rising SST may (partly) originate from the greenhouse effect. However, in 2004 and 2005 we saw a lot of hurricanes, but 2006 was a quiet year.
Some scientists believe this is due to the “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation” (AMO), which is basically a cycle in which temperatures rise and fall. But simulation shows that this can’t be the whole story (the temperature difference is only 0.5 degrees Celsius). The models do show (as far as they are correct; which is difficult to assess) that human action is likely a cause of the rising SST. Approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius can be attributed to human action (probably without the AMO) since 1970. It is noted that this may sound small, but only one degree can change the storm’s intensity to a higher category. This may well explain the rise in the number of ‘high’ category hurricanes.
The fact that 2006 was a quiet year (in stark contrast to 2004 and 2005) is due to a different factor. In 2004/2005, El Nino warmed the ocean. La Nina cooled the ocean the subsequent year. This is explained in the remainder of the article.
The article concludes that the hurricane threats are likely to get more severe.
Here are some more wallpapers in response to this. I can’t post all different resolutions (e.g. widescreen or 4:3) because I don’t have much space on WordPress.
(The thumbnail system is still messy on WordPress; for some reason the last wallpaper doesn’t get a thumbnail… :\)
Inspired by the wallpapers linked from the Dragonfly BSD Digest, I tried a more abstract approach.
(for some reason, wordpress doesn’t want me add a thumbnail with a link to a png… )
Justin, you can use it on the website; I'd be honoured ;).
I made the background myself, and the logo is the official logo by
Joe Angrisano. The wallpaper is BSD licensed ;).
I wasn’t sure if I’d go, but after support from my loving parents, I decided to go to the Lou Reed concert here in Amsterdam on June 21. I took my little bro’ and little girlfriend with me, as I usually do. Never know if they like it, but they’re always by my side.
Anyway, the concert was great, albeit a little short. Approximately 90 minutes, and only 3 songs after the “Berlin” album was finished. There was a great synergy between Lou Reed and fellow guitarist Steve Hunter, which alone made it worth it. There was a movie and/or images projected on the background. The audience was pretty well behaved, but that was probably because the average age was 50 years or so ;).
Anyway, here are some pictures … I couldn’t fit everyone in the picture (e.g. the people from The London Metropolitan Orchestra), but in the background you can see The New London Childrens Choir. It was a really special time.
Thanks to my parents again.
Now an article from New Scientist about alternatives to alcohol used in Russia. The article opens with the following:
“A shocking 43% of deaths in working-age Russian men result from drinking alcohol not meant for human consumption, such as cologne and cleaning agents, according to a new study.“, which helps explaining why Russian men have the lowest life expectancy at just 59 years!
The alternatives to alcohol are cheaper and have a higher alcohol content. On the positive side, when drinking eau the cologne, burping may give a more pleasant smell… This must be an attractive feature to the women ;).
Not surprisingly, the people that drink the ‘alternatives’ to alcohol, have a much higher risk of alcohol related death.
Finally some shocking figures:
Bring on the Soviet-Russia jokes ;).
In the category ‘Weird Science’ an article appeared on the site of Scientific American about antibacterial products. More and more antibacterial products are used, but to what avail?
Normal soaps wash away ‘nonspecifically’, “meaning they wipe out almost every type of microbe in sight—fungi, bacteria and some viruses—rather than singling out a particular variety.“
On the other hand, after applying antibacterial products, conditions may arise which may actually help the resistent bacteria, because not all bacteria may be killed. In fact, “a small subpopulation armed with special defense mechanisms can develop“, so that these bacteria develop a tolerance and reproduce. This, in turn, may help the bacteria in growing resistant to certain antibiotics.
A problem that arises is that, at least in America, certain antibacterial compounds are found in “60 percent of America’s streams and rivers“, and may eventually end up in crops.
In the end, the advise is to wash your hands 3 times a day with regular soaps, and leave the antibacterial soaps at hospitals.
About a week ago, Apple replied to my complaints. Basically, they said that if I can prove that the iPod was broken when I bought it (or, that the problem was there since the beginning, e.g. due to a design mistake), then they would look into my complaints. Put differently, I need to prove that the design is flaky to begin with.
It’s easy for them to say this (they know I can’t prove it), and I mailed an organization for consumer rights. If Apple doesn’t know what’s wrong with it, how the fuck can I prove that there was a mistake during fabrication or design fault? I’m waiting for a reply, before I send a second letter to them. But I’m sure this story doesn’t end yet …
Previous thursday, June 7th, we went to see 65daysofstatic. The concert was great, albeit a little short, but it was really hot and they were jumping around. I got tired watching them ;).
As usual, I tried to make some pictures; you can see 2 of them on the concert page. There was not much light (they said at the beginning of the concert: “If we look as bad as we smell, you should dim the light…”, then the light was dimmed ;).
The pictures aren’t great, almost bad, but I had to choose a high ISO and a high shutterspeed (did I mention they were moving fast?)… but at least it’s something. The noise doesn’t bother me, but they’re too dark.
I quite like them, the first two due their simplicity, the other because there’s some contrast between the message (”to her who kept saying no to fascism”) and the pee/filth on the left side (”women of ravensbruck”).
From one “research“:
Kids with longer ring fingers compared to index fingers are likely to have higher math scores than literacy or verbal scores on the college entrance exam, while children with the reverse finger-length ratio are likely to have higher reading and writing, or verbal, scores versus math scores.
From different “research“:
The research, done at the University of Alberta and announced Wednesday, found a connection between the length of the male index finger relative to the ring finger and the tendency to be aggressive.
No such connection was found in women.
Testosterone promotes development of mathematical and spatial skills. On the other hand, more estrogen promotes development of verbal skills, which lengthens the index finger.
On the same page it is mentioned that the longer the ringfinger is, the larger the amount of testosteron during the pregnancy. More testosteron results in more agression (at least, it makes it more likely; nothing can be said about individuals, only about groups). So this perfectly explains why you see all the agressive bald mathematicians, with those leather jackets, tattoos with hearts of “Mama”, scars and such at the G8 demonstrations.
Remember though, that other things like “flawed brain chemistry, brain damage, genetic defects, an unhealthy psychological environment” all contribute to the behaviour, so one needs to be careful about deducing characteristics from future lovers.
Oh yeah, my ringfinger is approximately 13 mm longer than my indexfinger. Nothing unexpected, as people know me as a highly agressive vegetarian listening to 60s music, enjoying math.
(The reason the word “research” is between quotes, is because I’m not too confident in these types of research. There may be a correlation, but that doesn’t mean there’s a connection (in the form of causation) between the two. I have to admit I didn’t read the original articles (which were published), but my expectations are too low to be bothered with it. Also, the amount of test-subjects in both “researches” is pretty low; add some statistics, and you can easily produce true lies.)
