Noisy fan

I noticed a whining noise, coming out of my computer, and it turned out to be caused by the fan on my graphics card. It is about 3 years old, so the fan starts to wear and will soon stop turning, which could be disastrous for the GPU on the graphics card.

So I started looking for a replacement fan on the producer's website and found this :

Noisy Fan or Fan Failure

The fans on ATI graphics cards are not user replaceable parts. To avoid any complications due to any possible damage that may have been caused by the fan's failure or degraded functionality, the entire card should be replaced. If the card is currently under warranty and built by ATI, you can fill out and submit the online warranty request form at http://www.ati.amd.com/rma.

As I mentioned, my graphics card, a ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128MB, is 3 years old, so past warranty, but it still works fine. It seems I'll have to find a replacement fan, without help from ATI. I'm sure I'll find one, but I'm a bit upset ATI provides such a lousy service.

I can understand, they want you to buy a completely new and costly graphics card that's faster and better, but maybe if you read something like this, a customer might consider buying a graphics card of another supplier next time. One that does provide spare fans. ;)

RIP Mark Hoekstra

Mark Hoekstra, a young Dutch guy, passed away last week, after suffering a heart attack. He was only 34.

He hosted the geektechnique.org website, informing the world of his ongoing projects and hacking together of electronic gadgets.

His death is a great loss for the Open Source and hacking community.

RIP Mark Hoekstra, you will be missed.

Waiting for reactions

As I'm actively looking for a new job, during the last few weeks, I've send out some applications already. But after sending them, comes a very boring and nerve-wrecking stage : waiting for reactions.

Some companies have a web application or a dedicated E-mail address for sending applications. Other have a good policy on handling applications. Both result in a (semi-)automatic answer, thanking you for your application, confirming your application was received or instructions on when to expect an answer (or not), or what to do when you haven't received an answer within a certain period of time.

Others send out letters or E-mails thanking you for your application, but regret to have to inform the vacancy is already filled or you don't seem to satisfy all the criteria needed for the job, wishing you good look on finding a job.
But, in case you're not suitable for the job, they never tell you why you're not fitting in. Was it something in the presentation letter? Was I too modest, or not elaborative enough? Did I write something offending? Didn't I apply to all courtesy and protocol which is needed in writing a presentation letter?
Or do I miss some experience or education? Did they put more value in the optional prerequisites, than was laid out in the vacancy?
I probably will never know, but it keeps me wondering.

But some don't react to your application at all, which is actually quite rude. If they would just send a short message informing you don't fit in (like I mentioned in the previous paragraph), you can stop waiting for an answer. But if no reaction comes, when can you stop hoping for a reaction?

But fortunately, you only need one job, so if you send out enough applications, some reach companies of the first type, resulting hopefully in a positive reaction or an invitation for further testing or an interview. And once you have a job, it doesn't matter some applications never get answered. But while you're waiting, it can be quite stressful.

Spooks series 6

A pure work of art, absolutely brilliant. That's how I would describe the new episodes of BBC drama series Spooks, of which series 6 started last week on BBC1.

The first story spans the first two episodes. In the first episode, a threat of a fast spreading lethal virus in London is introduced. In the second episode it gets even more harsh, when MI5 decides to abduct spies of befriended nations like USA, Russia and France and threats to infect them with the virus, to persuade them to reveal the location of the antidote. MI5 believes one of those nations manufactured the virus and must have produced an antidote as well, but are certain the only way to get them to admit this antidote exists, is by these extreme measures.
In the end the antidote is found and all infected victims are cured, but relations with intelligence services of befriended nations are very hostile because of the abduction. And this will most definitely dominate the storyline of the next episodes. I'm really looking forward to it.

Shopping for clothing

Today I went shopping in Antwerp, to buy some clothes. I left by train in Ghent at 13u13 and arrived in Antwerp about 45 minutes later. Then I went to 'De Meir', the biggest shopping street in Antwerp and bought the following things :

• 1 pair of shoelaces
• 3 trousers
• 4 T-shirts
• 3 pull-overs
  

I left again by train at 15u06.

The shopping spree took me under 3 hours, to buy enough clothes to have no need to going shopping for another year.

People might wonder why I went to Antwerp to buy clothes. If I would have shopped in Ghent, I might have spent even less time. The reason is simple : I like going to Antwerp once in a while, and the shop where I usually buy my clothes is bigger in Antwerp than the one in Ghent, so there are more clothes to choose from.

Apple iPhone comes to Europe

The Financial Times reports, Apple has signed contracts with Orange, O2 and T-mobile for exclusive use of the iPhone on their networks in Europe. This means the iPhone can only be used on the networks of these providers and not with other mobile providers.
In June, when the iPhone was released in the US, iPhone users could only use their new phone on the network of AT&T. Apple had signed an exclusive contract with AT&T for a two year period.

Initial release of the iPhone in Europe, is planned for the autumn. But it will only be available in Germany, the UK and France. The iPhone will be released in the rest of Europe, in the beginning of next year.
For Belgium this means the iPhone will probably be available in spring 2008, and only on the Mobistar network, as Mobistar is part of the Orange group.

Young people oblivious about science

A survey of Eos, a Belgian scientific magazine, revealed that young people (aged 18-24) know far less about scientific facts than older generations.
On a questions like 'Does planet earth revolve around the sun?', one in three didn't know the right answer. Even older generations (+65) did better on this question.
An explanation for this is the changed focus in education from factual knowledge to teaching of skills to resolve problems. Young people don't seem to be interested in science as well.

This trend doesn't only show in Belgium. In the United States, politicians fear the US won't be competitive in the scientific field, because not enough student take on maths, science and engineering courses in college.

If you want to know, how you would score on the test run by EOS, you can take it here (in Dutch).

Night out

It's weird what can happen when going out. You know were you begin, but you never know where and when it will end.

The evening started with Transformers, which I saw with Brecht. Afterwards we went to Viewmaster 07, to meet Brecht's girlfriend Tine and some friends (Sophie, Lore). Because the film they showed, L'empire des senses, was a bit of a bore, we went for a drink in L'heure bleue, near Sint-Jacobs.
There we met two Australian people, who were staying at Sophie's place. They are on a trip through Europe and got to know Sophie on the couch surfing project.
Afterwards, Sophie, Lore and I went to a bar called Maritime, after Sophie got a message of a friend telling that a party was going on there. It turned out to be a bar with old people with a DJ playing old music. We left and went to Video, a popular bar in Gent, near De Oude Beestenmarkt.
There we met Koen, who works for a company called oneDotOnly. They design websites, organise events and do creative things.
The evening ended at his place, where Lore, Koen and I drank a nightcap. I went home at 7 in the morning, while the sun started to set above Gent.

It turned out to be a very strange night, meeting a lot of new people. I had a good time.

Google's stock plunges

Yesterday, Google announced its quarterly results.
Although Google had a profit of 925 million USD, which is 28% higher than last quarter, analysts were 'disappointed', because operating expenses were much higher than expected.
This 'bad news' caused the exchange rate of Google's stock to drop over 30 USD (about 6%) this morning when NYSE* opened.
During the day this loss was slightly restored, but today the value of the Google's stock dropped to a rate of a month ago.

I know stock exchange is sometimes irrational, but am I the only one to see that an increase in profit of 28% is rather well? Google's stock should have gone up today, not down.
I realise that profit could have been bigger if there had been less expenses, but a company like Google should invest in development, which costs money, in order to maintain its growth.

But probably the stockbrokers who caused the drop of Google's stock by mass selling this morning, were smart enough to sell when the stock rate was high and bought those stock back after prices had dropped massively, thus making about 30 USD per stock.
And suddenly stock exchange seems less irrational.

But then again, maybe now is a good time to buy Google stock, they're a lot cheaper than they were yesterday. ;-)



* NYSE = New York Stock Exchange, Google's stock is noted on NASDAQ

Astronomers need help

Some time ago I wrote about computers needing human assistance for certain tasks, like recognizing images or understanding text.
This time astronomers need human intelligence to assign pictures of distant galaxies to a few categories. This is another task, that's trivial for human but immensely complex and error prone for computers.
The project is called Galaxy Zoo and its concept is simple :
A picture of a galaxy is shown to you and you have to decide which category it belongs to.
This is how you get started : After registration, you get a small tutorial explaining the different types of galaxies. After the tutorial you have to do a small test where you get 15 pictures of galaxies and you have to decide which category they belong to. When you get 8 out of 15 correct, you can start sorting new galaxies.

Cut off

I haven't figured out what caused the outage, but I was cut off from internet the entire evening. Maybe the intensive rain flooded a local hub?
As the internet connection uses the television cable, I wasn't able to watch television either.

At first I was a little annoyed, but this soon faded when I realized I could read instead of watching television or spending some time on the internet.
I was able to finish a book I started reading on the train traveling to Barcelona and read some articles I had lying around.
It turned out to be a very enjoyable evening, listening to music and hearing the sound of extensive showers in the background while reading a good book.

BTW : The book I finished was 'Het derde huwelijk' (The third marriage) by Tom Lanoye.

Computer crash

Yesterday, my fileserver crashed. I noticed this when I tried to check my mails and couldn't connect to internet. (The fileserver also serves as DHCP and DNS.)
Because I had an exam this morning, I couldn't investigate why the server had stopped working.
Tonight I had some time to look into it. After some testing I found out the power supply (PSU) failed.
So I can repair my computer by buying a new PSU tomorrow, instead of having to replace the motherboard. So, I'm quite lucky.

Strangely enough I replaced the PSU with a a more expensive one only last year. According to its specs it would last for nearly four years. It turns out that the PSU doesn't comply with its specs. :-(

Prokofiev 2

The final of the Queen Elisabeth contest for piano 2007 has started on monday and is now halfway.

Six finalist have played, with six more to come. The standard throughout the week was very high, but the second finalist that played this evening was absolutely amazing.

Anna Vinnitskaya started her performance tonight with a Beethoven sonate (Sonate n.13 in Es op. 27/1 “Quasi una fantasia”) which she played as it was meant to be.
Then she played Prokofiev's second piano concerto. And it was beautiful.
This concerto is immensely difficult to play, so the commentators on television said, but she played it like she does this all the time. Maybe she does, which might explain why she played it so well. ;-)
Both the public and panel on television were very enthousiastic about her performance.
With another six finalists that have to play in the next three days, one can only hope that all of them play equally well. But if they don't, Anna Vinnitskaya has a very good chance to become this year's winner.

Slurpr

Last week I came along a device, called Slurpr, on the blog of Geektechnique. The creators called it 'the ultimate wardrive box'.
It is designed to access up to six wireless networks, in order to accumulate the bandwith of the wifi's it is connected to and get a massive total available bandwith.
Although wardriving and accessing other people's private wifi's is actually forbidden, this is still a very cool gadget.

It seems other people on the internet have noticed this device too, as this webcomic already mentions the Slurpr.

No mail

The mail service in my town is on strike for over a week now. This means I, and all other inhabitants of my town, haven't received any mail since.
The employees of the mail service are on strike to protest against Georoute2, a software application that was implemented last summer to optimize the delivery of mail. They claim the work pressure has gone up since the new software is being used.

I can do a few days without mail, I'm expecting no important letters or bills. But now, the strike is on for more than a week, and I'm starting to wonder about a few things.
Is there any important mail for me, that is delayed now, because of the strike?
When will the strike end?
If the strike ends tomorrow, how many days will it take the postal service to deliver all delayed mail?
Isn't this going to cause even more work pressure for the employees, until all delayed mail is delivered?
If the strike takes much longer, will there be an alternative to get my mail?
What if I receive some bills past due date, because of the strike?

Gadget keyboard

Optimus Maximus sounds more like the name of an Emperor or warlord from the Roman Empire, but actualy it is the name of a very cool keyboard.
On first sight it seems to be a normal keyboard, with some extra colourful buttons. But what makes this keyboard special is the buttons. A small LED-screen is fitted into each button, making the keyboard-layout fully dynamic. The keyboard can have azerty, qwerty or dvorak layout, but can also show Cyrilic, Arabic, Chinese or Hindi characters on the buttons. All buttons are fully adjustable and you can add your own (moving) images to each buttons.

This keyboard was in a development stage for quite some time now, but starting this week it can be pre-ordered. The first 200 to order the keyboard will receive it in the beginning of december 2007.

There's only one small drawback to this very cool gadget keyboard : it's priced approximatly at 1250 €.

Adventures at the counter

Yesterday, I ordered train tickets for a trip to Barcelona and today I headed over to the train station to get them.

It was quiet in the station hall, no one seemed to take a train at that moment, so I went to the counter and told the person behind it I had ordered some traintickets and would like to get them. She asked me for the reservation code and some details about payment. Everything went well and soon my tickets were being printed.
But then two ladies entered the station hall en came to the counter, standing behind me, waiting to buy a train ticket. There was only one counter available at the time, so they had to wait until I had finished receiving my tickets. Because the transaction of printing ordered international train tickets takes a little longer than buying a local trainticket, the two ladies behind me started mumbling after about a minute of waiting: 'Why does it take so long?' It seemed that the noun 'to wait' didn't occur in their dictionary, as one of the ladies soon stood next to me repeating the same question.
Naive as I am, I responded that I was getting some ordered tickets, but that she could get her ticket at an automatic ticket dispenser located a bit further in the station hall. I suspect she didn't like my answer, looking at her facial expression while she mumbled something like, 'Me? Do 'I' have to get my ticket there?' Later, I realised she probably wasn't aware something like an automatic ticket dispenser existed, let alone that she knew how to operate one.
But she gave it a try, heading over to the machine, but soon returned to the counter, standing next to me while trying to get the attention of the person behind the counter.
The woman behind the counter ignored her and continued handling my tickets and started explaining which tickets I had ordered before putting them in an envelope.
Then the lady next to me started talking to the person behind the counter, telling that she needed a train ticket urgently.
The woman behind the counter answered : 'I'm busy, wait your turn.'
Then the woman next to me replied : 'But I need to get a ticket urgently, I'll miss my train.'
The woman behind the counter responded : 'I can't be bothered, I'm handling an international dossier. Wait your turn.'

The woman behind the counter continued putting my tickets in an envelope, while the woman desperatly needing a train ticket backed off. When the woman behind the counter handed me the envelope I thanked her, wishing her a nice evening and started heading out of the station hall. While I left, I heard the woman, who stood behind me earlier, ordering her train ticket.

I think I was less than five minutes in the train station, which was not such a long time for getting international train tickets. I remember standing behind a couple ordering their international train tickets with only one counter available in the station, when I needed to get a train ticket, with the departure of my train getting nearer as minutes passed by. I don't remember clearly how long I had to wait then, but I'm quite sure it took longer than I had to wait for my tickets today. But I got a ticket and that train on time, probably with seconds to spare, but who cares about that when one gets on a train right on time.
Normally, I use a railpass for 10 rides, that I have to fill in before getting on a train, so I don't need to wait at the counter before I can get my train.
But if I have to buy my ticket, I use this rule of thumb : 'Leave 10 minutes earlier, in case you have to stand in line before you can get a train ticket.', a rule of which the two ladies behind me probably hadn't heard before. If you don't have to stand in line more than 10 minutes, you can get your train without rushing and maybe you have time to buy something to drink or enjoy the sun or the people passing by while standing at the platform. If you do have to wait for more than 10 minutes, well, then there's nothing you can do about it, but wait. There are plenty of trains to come after the one you are missing. Missing a train gives you even more time to enjoy the sun at the platform, or watching people in the train hall, rushing to get their train. Or maybe you can get something out of your bag to read while you are waiting for the next train.
This is what I meant when I mentioned, 'relaxing trip' when traveling by train, in the previous message : reading a bit while listening to some music, watching people or enjoying the scenery. But some people don't seem to get this.

Friends blogging

Last week some of my friends started a blog. They all blame peer-pressure to start a blog of their own.

• Bright Smith
• Mane
• Princeps & Phouka

Funny thing is, the style of their blogs resembles very much how I know them.

Google's April Fool : TiSP

Today I read a story on Slashdot about Google launching a free wireless broadband service, called TiSP. A link of how it works was provided, leading to a page on Google's website.

On this page was a picture of an installation kit and instructions on how to get your wireless network to work. Going short : You have to flush a cable through the toilet, into the sewage system and connect one end to a wireless accesspoint. The other end is picked up by a Google engineer, located somewhere in the sewage system, connecting it to a large and fast fiber optics network.

It sounds all very promissing and it is presented very professionaly, so it seems almost believable, but it is somewhat unrealistic and inpractical to flush a cable to get wireless internet access. Combine this with the date the story was released (april, 1st) :
This must be Google's April Fool's day joke. Very funny!

Am I a nerd?

I came along a funny little quiz on Bruce's blog.

Your Result: Science/Math Nerd   (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Literature Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Social Nerd
Anime Nerd
Drama Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
What Be Your Nerd Type?