Archive for May, 2006

The Alchemist

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006

Things come to you when they are supposed to;

Yesterday I started reading 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho, a book my cousin gave me for my Birthday.

I've heared of the book before, but actually didn't know what to expect…well, it's 'A fable about following your dream'! Nice timing since I am thinking a lot lately about where I am today, where I want myself to be and how to get there 🙂

A related quote from the book: "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity."

Mowing the grass

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006


Our 9 square meters of grass in the backyard really needed a mow (10 inches is too much :)).

It stopped raining after a week and I got the summer in my head! Nothing beats the smell of freshly mowed grass…:)

Tax on email and SMS?!?

Monday, May 29th, 2006

I just read a story covered by nu.nl (a dutch news-site, so in dutch!), mentioning that the EU is investigating options to put tax on sending an mail (0.00001 Euro-cent) and SMS (1.5 Euro-cent)!!

What the fuck?!?

I've heared of the idea before, never thought it would be seriously considered/investigated.

Basic reason for it is the fact that globalisation of market and economies make it harder and harder for authorities to collect enough tax-money to run the country. It is for that reason that the European Parliament is finding new sources of income?!? Other ideas for instance are taxing on the online purchase of flighttickets (which in a way would make more sense).

But putting tax on emailing? Or sending text messages (SMS)?? CRAAAZZZY!

Sending an ordinary slain-mail message isn't taxed? The stamp you put on the envelop is to pay for the *transport* of the letter. With email this is all digitally and obviously one is already paying for the transport mechanisme (your internet-feed), so what the heck?!?

The fee that is proposed is near to nothing, so no one will really feel it (besides the small number of large corporates sending 100,000's of mail per day), but the idea alone…STOP IT!

How would they like to track this anyway? Setting up and maintaining a system for this would probably cost more than can ever be collected.

Thinking about this a second time…the only advantage could be that spammers suffer from it, then again…they are not trackable anyway, so will most likely not be taxed. 

The SMS-tax is considerably higher and will most certainly be harder to implement, again…the idea is off-base!

On the road again

Friday, May 26th, 2006

It started last weekend and will go on for the coming 5 weeks orso, packed weekends!

This weekend I'll be starting by staying over at family, go to a 'newly born' party on Saturday and visit friends in the south of The Netherlands in the evening. Then on Sunday I'll play soccer (!?!huh???) in a family tournament…guess I'll need Sunday evening to rest! 😉

Am trying not the miss the Monace Formula One race this Sunday, will probably have to tape it! 🙂

QOTD May 25 2006

Thursday, May 25th, 2006

Aldo Leopold: "Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them. Now we face the question whether a still higher standard of living is worth its cost in things natural, wild and free."

Flickr problems?!?

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006

All of you who wanted to see last weekends photos on my Flickr-page in the last hours (in the timeframe of posting them yesterday till approximately now), will have noticed that they were not available, incomplete and a lot of 'bad links'?!?

Apparently there has been a major database problem at Flickr which they have worked on through the night. Most of it seems to be fixed now, it should work again!

So, check 'm out! 🙂

Pictures of last weekend in the Belgian Ardennes

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

I posted a nice selection of last weekends Belgian Ardennes pictures on my Flickr-site, check 'm out!

I won a Golden Ticket!!!

Monday, May 22nd, 2006

I'm in!!! 🙂

Listened to the 5th DevCast this morning and won a 'Golden Ticket' (YEAHHH!!) giving me access to the Podshow Delivery Network and Podshow+, all still in Beta. Am able to take part in/follow the Podshow development…YESSS!!!

Back from the Ardennes

Sunday, May 21st, 2006

We've jsut returned back from the Ardennes, lovely weekend! The weather wasn't too good, but that couldn't spoil the fun. Great to spend a weekend with the whole family!

Pictures to come tomorrow, off to bed now! 🙂

(I found the 'best' way to decide what name to use for the Ardennes area in Belgium; both have hits in a Google-search, but Ardennes completely smashes Ardens! :))

Off to the Ardens (or Ardennes?!?)

Friday, May 19th, 2006

'nuff for this week! I'm off to the Ardens/Ardennes, enjoying a weekend with the whole family, celibrating my parents 35th marriage anniversary! Catchya all later!!

Opening Apple Store 5th Avenue, NYC

Friday, May 19th, 2006

Apple will open its Apple Store flagship today. The store is underground, with a glass cube as entrance (designed by Steve Jobs himself!) sitting on top of it, amazing sight!

  

The store will be open 365 days, 24 hours a day ready to serve people 'round the clock, targetting to set a new standard in retail experience…I've never been in New York, but this is another reason to go there…soon!! 🙂

Future search engine?

Thursday, May 18th, 2006

Via frEdSCAPEs:

The next generation search engines could very well look something like InquisitorX.

Check it out yourself! It's a nice cross-over between a standard search engine and the highly valued Mac OS X Spotlight search technology which displays the results while you type. Supported search engines are A9, Amazon, Digg, Flickr, Google, Technorati and Yahoo!

QOTD May 17 2006

Wednesday, May 17th, 2006

Lucille Ball: "Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world."

New MacBook

Tuesday, May 16th, 2006

Apple: “MacBook: the most advanced affordable Mac notebook ever.”

Today Apple released the successor to its entry level notebooks, the MacBook! It replaces the G4 iBook as well as the 12″ G4 Powerbook and can be seen as the little brother of the “MacBook Pro” line of Intel Core Duo based notebooks released earlier this year…uhhhh…I wanna have?? 🙂

QOTD May 15 2006

Monday, May 15th, 2006

Joseph Campbell: You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know what was in the newspapers that morning… a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be."

Michal & Eva in Amsterdam

Sunday, May 14th, 2006
Michal & Eva in Amsterdam

Michal & Eva in Amsterdam,
originally uploaded by raymondpoort.

Robbert and I met up with Michal and Eva whom we know from Pohoda last year. Great to see them in our country! They love Amsterdam…uhhh, despite of or thanks to the coffeeshops? 🙂

three-wheel car

Sunday, May 14th, 2006
three-wheel car

three-wheel car,
originally uploaded by raymondpoort.

A car you don’t see that often anymore, a three-wheel car (or tricar for the British), picture taken in Amsterdam today!

moblogging works!

Saturday, May 13th, 2006

It worked…great!

Now I have another way of posting to the site…it's not completely mobile blogging, since sending email from my GSM is not activated (and I can't activate it myself since my work is not enabling GPRS).

Still it can be quite convenient to post an entry by just sending an email!

The last thing to overcome is to get rid of the standard signature that my provider puts in ('—– Scanned for virus and spam')…

moblog test

Saturday, May 13th, 2006

It would be cool to see this email being posted on my blog, cause it
means that the moblog is set up correctly!! 🙂
—–
Scanned for virus and spam

Busy weekend coming up

Friday, May 12th, 2006

Friday afternoon, sun is still out, this doesn't feel like The Netherlands at all…but I'm NOT complaining 🙂

A busy weekend coming up;

'Da girl' is enjoying Malaga with friends, so I have my hands free…well, uhhh, free?

Tonight a Norwegian colleague with his Slovak wife (and new born boy) will stay over, tomorrow I'll spend the evening with the guys 'left behind' by the 'Malaga'-girls and Sunday I'll be in Amsterdam seeing some Slovak friends whom I met at Pohoda last year…inbetween I have to find some time to clean the shed, the house and work on some websites I maintain, oh…and I would like to watch the Formula One race…oofff! 🙂