RalphvandenBerg.com Ramblings

The Year of Babies

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 12:37:58 +0700

I've been very blessed with the birth of my daughter, Annabelle, in May. She's a beautiful little girl. Becoming a father is a great pleasure and a great challenge at the same time. I'm incredibly lucky that she was born completely healthy and strong, but not everybody is as lucky as me.

My best friend and his wife are also having a baby, due in a couple of months. We know already that this baby boy will be best friends with Annabelle and maybe their relationship will turn into something a little more when they both get older. Only thing is that little boy has some giant hurdles to overcome.

My friend's unborn baby has been diagnosed with HLHS (info 1, info 2). It's heart has one side severely underdeveloped. He will need heart surgery immediately after birth and then several times more during the course of his first few months. These operations aren't easy and they aren't cheap. And this is something the insurance won't cover.

Now I want to ask you for help so my best friend's baby boy has a chance at life. So my friend and his wife can experience the joys of being parents. So Annabelle can have her friend.

Please check out the link to the fundraising campaign. Donate something if you can and please share it with as many people as possible. If we all contribute a little bit it will add up and make a difference.

gofundme.com/littleheart

How to Manage and Clear Up Space in Dropbox

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 27 Mar 2015 14:03:55 +0700

Dropbox is great for synchronizing files across all your devices and it's also a handy backup utility. With a free Dropbox account you can earn extra space through various tasks such as inviting others to sign up (sign up for Dropbox!) but as we know from Parkinson's Law, we'll quickly run out of space regardless. Here's a guide that will help you identify what's taking up the most space so you can start clearing out some older files you no longer need. Please note that this is applicable to not only your Dropbox folder, but any folder or drive on your PC where you are running low on storage space.

WinDirStat

The app we're going to use is WinDirStat, and we'll grab the portable version for convenience. Download it here. Install WinDirStat and put it in a convenient location. It doesn't matter so much where, it doesn't take up much space at all. When it's ready, launch WinDirStat from inside the folder.

When you launch WinDirStat portable it will popup a window that prompts you to select a location. You can pick your hard drive, C or D, but for this tutorial we will use the "A Folder" option at the bottom and pick your Dropbox folder. Now click OK and it will start scanning. Depending on the size it could take a couple seconds to a couple of minutes. When it's done you'll see the directory tree above and a graphic with colored blocks on the bottom.

This view is very intuitive. The directories along the top are listed from largest down to smallest. The blocks on the bottom represent files and are colored according to file types. The blocks are also grouped together for folders, although that might not be as obvious sometimes. You can click on folders in the directory tree and it will highlight the group of blocks that belong to that folder. You can also click on a particular block and it will show you what file it is and where it's located in the directory tree.

Try clicking on some of the bigger blocks. Those are the bigger files and will help you a lot if you're trying to clear up some extra space. When you click on a big block you'll see what files it it and you can decide if it's something you need to keep in your Dropbox folder. You can right-click on the file in the directory tree to delete it (skipping the recycle bin if you're confident) or choose to "Explore here" to open that folder in Windows Explorer so that you can perhaps move the file to another location outside of your Dropbox folder.

In my case I noticed that I have several large video files that I put in a shared folder. I know that the other users have since copied those files already, so it doesn't need to remain there taking up space. In reality I forgot about those video files and with the help of WinDirStat I was able to spot the space hogs and clean them up.

Keep going through the big blocks to spot the big files, and when you've gone through them you can check the larger groups of small files. Just click on one of the tiny blocks and it will identify the directory in the directory tree. There you can click on the folder that holds the small files and see if it's something worth keeping in your Dropbox folder. A quicker way to select a folder is to right-click on one of the small blocks and click "Select Parent".

That's it. This simple guide should help you identify where your biggest space wasters are located on your computer. If you have other tips & tricks or questions, feel free to leave a comment below!

Google's new Inbox - First Impressions

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 17:12:30 +0700

Google has been working on a new system. Something that will revolutionize email. I think theyâ€™ve done it.

Their new app is simply called Inbox. It probably wonâ€™t replace Gmail for everyone, but it has done so for me. The way I handle emails now has completely changed.

The easiest way to try to explain what this new Inbox is all about is to think of it like this: Your email inbox is now a to-do list. Each new email that comes in needs some interaction from you. Maybe you just need to read it, maybe just answer it, or maybe much more actions are required on your part before you can dismiss this particular email. Out of sight; out of mind.

You can still email like you would usually, but there are 2 new actions that play a key role in changing the behavior of your Inbox. There is â€œSnoozeâ€, which will hide the email until a later time, or â€œDoneâ€ which basically archives the email. Letâ€™s take an example. An email comes in and all it requires is that you read it. You donâ€™t need to reply to this particular email, itâ€™s just some updates. If you donâ€™t feel like reading it now, but instead later in the evening, you â€œSnoozeâ€ until 7pm. The email disappears and thatâ€™s it. At 7pm it comes up again. Then you read it and mark it as â€œDoneâ€. Email goes away. (You can find it of course in the â€œdoneâ€ items).

If the email is more complicated it gets more interesting. If you receive an email which requires you to gather some information and then send it back, you can firstly snooze it until the time you decide to actually do it, but you can add a reminder to the email. Basically just add a small note to the email that reminds you what you need to do. Once youâ€™ve gathered the information, you write a reply and send it. Now you can mark the email as â€œDoneâ€, and once again, it disappears from your inbox.

This system makes so much sense in a regular workflow. At a glance you can see emails with the reminder notes youâ€™ve created. Speaking of reminders, you can create simple reminders which sit in your inbox along with the emails youâ€™ve not completed yet. These reminders work with Google Now reminders seamlessly, so it is very intuitive. You can start to see how you start to treat your emails as to-do items. Now when I launch Inbox (instead of Gmail) Iâ€™m faced with only items that need my attention and nothing else. My inbox is so de-cluttered, at some points in the day, after spurts of productivity, my inbox is completely empty!

This is why Iâ€™m so excited for Gmailâ€™s new Inbox. There are a bunch of other features which are nice, like bundling messages that belong together (even more than currently in Gmail) and showing key information about emails before opening them up (purchases, attachments, etc). Inbox is currently invitation only, but you can request access by emailing to inbox@google.com or asking a friend if theyâ€™ve got a spare invitation to send your way. Sorry, Iâ€™ve spent all of mine.

Have you had a chance to try Googleâ€™s new Inbox? Share your experiences in the comments!

Installing Sonic Ether's Shaders Mod for Minecraft (Tutorial)

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 12:06:14 +0700

Or in other words: How to make Minecraft look amazing. You've probably seen some amazing screenshots or videos where the sun casts long shadows and reflects in the water- things which are unheard of in plain vanilla Minecraft. Well, you too can experience a more visually appealing Minecraft, with the help of some very clever mods. Here's a step by step guide to help you install Sonic Ether's Incredible Shaders. The forums do an OK job of explaining how to install all the components, I mean, it worked for me, but I feel like I can probably do a better job of explaining everything step by step.

First, let's get your appetite going with some screenshots and a video.

Video: Minecraft: Super Pretty Shaders Mod (Mr. Survival s5ep24)

Keep in mind, you'll need quite a beefy computer to run this mod, and still you'll notice a significant hit in performance and Minecraft will generally become a little less stable. Your mileage may vary. This tutorial is for Windows. I did mine on Windows 8.1 64 bit, but 32 bit versions or Windows 7 should work just the same.

There are several steps you must perform in order. It's mods that allow mods that allow the mod to work. Don't worry it's not very difficult.

1. Forge

Link: http://goo.gl/ls00XO
Forge is a kind of mod that helps Minecraft deal with mods better. You can call it a "Mod loader" of sorts. Installing it is very simple. Download and run the installer and point it to your Minecraft folder (It should default to there already). Note, this only works on your default .minecraft folder. Once it is installed, it will create a folder called "mods" in your .minecraft folder where you dump your mod files. It also creates a new profile in the Minecraft launcher called "Forge". Run Minecraft from this profile if you want to play with the mods actived.

2. GLSL Shaders Mod

Link: http://goo.gl/3TX3s7
This is the mod that allows custom shaders like the one we're getting to in the next step. Just drop this zip file into the mods folder that was created by forge in the previous step.

3. Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders

Link: http://goo.gl/d1qPne
Now download Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders. Personally I went for the "Standard" version but you can be ambitious and go for "Ultra" if you like. Create a folder called "shaderpacks" in your .minecraft folder and throw the shader pack zip in there. Now when you run Minecraft through the forge profile, you will have the option to select the shaders, and you're set. The following two steps aren't required but I do recommend them.

4. Chroma Hills Resource Pack (Optional)

Link: http://goo.gl/sVWgzv
This is a higher resolution texture pack which also compliments the shaders mod by adding a little bump map lighting effect. You can of course use other high resolution texture packs if you like. Some of the realistic looking ones generally match up pretty well with these shaders! Just move the zip file into the resource packs folder in your .minecraft directory.

5. Latest Java SE Runtime (Recommended)

Link: http://goo.gl/PdvLrE
Do this so you get better performance and stability when you play Minecraft with mods. Just do it. Find the latest version that matches your computer and install it following the directions.

That was it! Now run Minecraft, remember to use the Forge profile. Active the shaders from the menu and pick the appropriate resource pack. I recommend making a backup of your world before playing because as I've mentioned before, these mods make Minecraft a bit unstable.

Now with these shaders installed it might not be stable and smooth enough to play regulary, but you can take beautiful screenshots of your favorite creations in Minecraft to share with your friends. You can also try some time-lapse videos, check out these links for tutorials on creating awesome time-lapses in Minecraft.

Video: Tutorial: Creating Time Lapse Slice Segments Images (in Minecraft)

Tutorial: How to make Timelapse Videos from Images (in Minecraft)

Android L: The Lockscreen in Depth

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:39:24 +0700

In my previous rambling (Check out my first impressions on Android L) I gave the new lockscreen in the developer preview build of Android L a "meh" rating, but I actually want to go into a bit more depth for this particular feature. There are some subtle ways you interact with the lockscreen which you might not notice at first, but they just might be enough to increase my rating to an "alright".

Apart from the notifications, there is now just a simple 4-way swipe system. You can swipe pretty much anywhere on the screen, you don't have to start from edges or from specific areas like you would in previous versions of Android (Unlocking by pulling the lock icon to the edge of the circle around it, or pulling the camera app in from the right edge of the screen). Basically what this means is you can start in the middle, for instance, and then swipe up, down, right, or left.

Swiping to the left launches the camera app. This we are used to already. Swiping to the right launches the dialer. To unlock, just swipe upward, and if you swipe down you get your notifications. On the rare occasion that you have no notifications it will pull down your settings toggles.

Speaking of notifications, you get 2 types. The higher priority ones show up in the middle. These are things like new messages and missed calls. You double tap them to act on them. The low priority ones stay hidden in the drawer and include things like Google Now cards. If you have the notification drawer down with notifications you can still perform your 4 directional swipes, except in this case swiping down again gives you the settings toggles, same behavior as when you use the notification drawer when your phone is unlocked.

That's pretty much it. Very minor things which the casual user might not even notice. For some us geeks, however, it's the subtle changes we'll pick up on pretty quick.

Stay up to date with my Android L experiences via Twitter: #AndroidL by @ralphvandenberg

Android L: My First Impressions

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:04:24 +0700

Google released a preview version of the next version of Android a few days ago. We don't know if it'll be Android 4.5 or 5.0 or even what the dessert title will be, just that right now they're just calling it "Android L". I went ahead and loaded it up on my Nexus 5 and now I'm ready to give you my first impressions. I'm coming from Android 4.4.4 so let's see what's hot and what's not.

(I'm not going to be able to talk about everything. I'm aware that there are thousands of under-the-hood changes that were made, but I'm just going to keep the scope of this rambling to my personal first impressions).

What's new?

Well, not that much. It still feels very much like a 4.4.x build of Android. The launcher works the same with Google Now on the left-most screen. There are some minor changes in appearance, such as the new navigation buttons and the solid colored app tray button, but those are negligible. The real differences are in the notifications and the lockscreen. Google is also introducing a new design scheme they call "Material Design" and they showcase it with the Dialer and Calculator apps. Android L also brings with it a new keyboard, but it's already available on Google Play for other devices, so it's not Android L exclusive anymore.

The Lockscreen

The lockscreen now puts new notifications in the middle of it. The new notifications look different, but I'll discuss that later. You still swipe from the right to get the camera, but now you can swipe from the left to get the dialer. Looks like this marks the end of lockscreen widgets. Unlocking your device, the traditional way (for those of us without smartwatches), now requires you to swipe up. A swipe down opens the notification drawer. I hesitate to call it a drawer, because it's not really that anymore.

Do I like the new lockscreen? Well, I have mixed feelings about it. I was using DashClock Widget before and that did a pretty good job already with notifications and such. For the time being I'm going to go with "Meh".

Update: I've taken a closer look at the lockscreen. Read about it here.

The Notifications

The notification drawer still kind of acts like a drawer in that you pull it down from the top, but the only thing that comes down are a set of cards with your notifications. They hover over your screen which is just slightly darkened. You can still swipe them off the side to dismiss them, they mostly still work the same way. The power toggles now require a second pull down. They've done away with the 2 finger swipe, which I think is fine. It was nuts having to bring in your other hand just to perform a 2 finger pull down. I must say it takes a bit of getting used to, just because it does mostly the same thing, but reacts to you differently. This is part of Google's new design plan.

Do I like the new notifications? I still need to adjust to it, but I think I like it. One thing I really, really like is that an incoming call is just a notification now. You can keep doing what you were doing while your phone rings. All in all, I'm welcoming this new notification system.

Material Design

How can I describe "Material Design"? It's bright colors, very flat, but with depth. Also, flowy flowy. Everything is supposed to react naturally to how you touch or swipe things now. Google demonstrated with the new dialer and calculator, and more apps supposedly to follow suit in the near future.

Do I like the new design? Yes, it feels like an improvement and something that will finally unify design in Android a little.

Final thoughts

I like Android L, even though it feels like not much is new. It's usable enough for day to day use, at least, for the last couple of days I haven't had any problems. Keep in mind that some apps don't work yet on Android L, namely in my experience, Firefox and Dropbox. There is also a performance improvement in that it uses Android Runtime (ART) now, but you can already use that on your Nexus 5 running Android 4.4.4 if you want, as I did. There is a new battery saving feature, which kicks in when the battery is low and turns of stuff like fancy animations.

I'd say, if you're feeling even slightly adventurous, try Android L. It will erase everything on your phone when you install this, but you should have everything properly backed up anyway, right? Also, I have a small worry that when they keep updating the developer preview builds that we'll keep on having to do fresh installs instead of updating, but we'll see about that.

For more updates, follow my tweets on #AndroidL.

Here are some useful links:
- Get the Android L look
- Install Android L on Nexus 5 or 7

Playing with Intangibles

Guest — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 11:55:44 +0700

Design techniques casinos use to keep the party going

To the uninitiated, designing a casino gaming floor requires nothing more than a big room with a high enough ceiling to accommodate the lights. Maybe a colonnade or five could be thrown in, complemented by various pieces of art to give it that touch of class.

While these are definitely on many design checklists, thereâ€™s something else to game room design thatâ€™s not readily apparent to people, nor is it meant to be: the psychological aspect. This design aspect is meant to allow players to forget the worries of the world and just focus on having a grand time at the poker tables or slot machines, as the following points illustrate:

1. In your visits to the MGM Grand or the Palazzo, have you ever wondered why their game rooms donâ€™t have any windows and clocks? This is so that - apart from checking their wristwatches or mobile gadgets - players wonâ€™t be able to tell the time. In effect, they will be able to focus more on their games and not have to worry about anything else; as they should, considering they went to the casino to unwind from daily stress in the first place.

2. In casinos, youâ€™ll notice that their cages are often placed at the far end of the room. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Danny Ocean wannabes might think twice about pulling off a heist when the money is held so far away from the front door. Second - and more importantly - if the cage were placed closer to the gaming area, a player who has just won big at the craps table might be compelled to cash in his chips quickly. With the cage all the way at the back, the lucky chap may just want to play a little bit more.

3. Aural cues also play a huge part in player psychology. A study conducted by British psychologist Mark Griffiths found that, because of peopleâ€™s association of high stakes games with a "fast and hard" lifestyle, music with fast tempo playing in the background actually made many want to play as such. Slot machines also have this kind of subtle suggesting; a characteristic copied even by their online counterparts. Betfair Casino's many games such as Bar X Magic 7 and Pharaohâ€™s Fortune not only emulate the bleeps and bloops of actual slots, but the musical ditties and loud cheers that accompany every win as well; sounds which seem designed to encourage players to try their luck once again for bigger bonuses. Conversely, every loss has subdued sounds effects and music to downplay the playerâ€™s defeat.

4. Lastly, a 2009 study by University of Guelph scientists discovered that women tended to play more if there seemed to be few other players on the game floor. Casinos utilize this with clever use of spacing: The floor may be able to hold more than a hundred players at any given time, but if the tables are spaced far enough apart, the total number of players might look closer to fifty.

Designers know that the intangibles and â€œnegative spacesâ€ matter just as much as the physical furnishings. The above items are just a sampling of the many more design techniques of this bent that casinos make the most of.

Saikham Motocross Event

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:33:42 +0700

Saikham Cyclecross and Motocross event for charity is happening this Saturday, 18 January 2014. It's open for anyone is participate! There are tons of different races you can join depending on experience, age groups, and motorbike types and performance. If you are just interested in spectating, you'll be in for a treat for some amateur motocross races happening all day.

The races start around 9am and will go on until the sun fades. Some races will be short 2 or 3 lap races while others will go on for longer. There is plenty of food and snacks available as well as some delicious cold beer.

For more information you can visit the Facebook page: http://goo.gl/Xo4nN4
Or call: 084-9859143
The location on Google Maps: http://goo.gl/BZq90b

Here are some pictures from previous amateur motocross events so you can get an idea of what to expect.

Hitting the Right Notes

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 14:47:26 +0700

Music is hard to get right. There's so much crap out there today. When it is done right, however, you can feel it in more than just your ear holes. I've recently come across something i feel makes for a good example of this. There are two songs which have some striking similarities but end up completely different.

The two songs are "Down with the Sickness" by Disturbed, and "Master Passion Greed" by Nightwish. With the help of some embeddable magic from Grooveshark I want to walk you through some of the bits that either work well or work against the song as a whole. Let's start with "Down with the Sickness", play just the first 30 seconds and pause it.

Down With The Sickness (Album Version) by Disturbed on Grooveshark

There's a nice drum bit with increasing guitars, slowly building up.

Now "Master Passion Greed", also just play the first 30 seconds and pause it.

Master Passion Greed by Nightwish on Grooveshark

You should be able to make some similarities here. So far I'm not going to really say which one wins out. Both of these songs do their first 30 seconds right. The interesting thing comes after the build-up. You need a climax, something bigger than the intro.

Start up "Down with the Sickness" again. From the beginning. Play it until about a minute in. The climax is the "OOO AH AH AH AH" and that's it. You're left with something mediocre after that. To understand what I mean when you need something bigger and fuller, start up "Master Passion Greed" again from the beginning and play about 1 minute 20 seconds. The sound gets only better and builds more energy.

I'm not trying to talk down Disturbed, really. It's more about praises for Nightwish. For hitting the right notes. Now go ahead and enjoy the rest of the songs. If you're like me, you'll find yourself hitting repeat a few more times after "Master Passion Greed".

Body Piercings

Context Pros — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:33:14 +0700

What ever happened to the normal, biological orifices with which we are all born? Adding extras, i.e. body piercings, have gotten completely out of hand! Iâ€™m trying to give the whole culture the benefit of the doubt, but my doubts are winning out over benefits! You need a brochure just to keep them all straight.

Take ear piercings, for example. Just how many holes can an earlobe sustain? I am afraid that the next time a baby grabs the earlobe of a multiple pierced lobe, it will tear off neatly along the dotted line! Even this pales in comparison to the lobes stretched enough to hold a AAA battery. What happens when the now 85 year old lobes are long and dangly? If you donâ€™t keep a dry cell battery or pill bottle in the enlarged hole, you risk being yanked off your feet when it catches on a door knob.

I suppose nose rings have some vague connection to the saying about â€œleading someone around by the noseâ€? The ear-ring-to-nose-ring chain thing has me puzzled though. Is it like the glasses on a chain around your neck so you wonâ€™t lose them? Which is it they are afraid will drop off unnoticed and be forever lostâ€¦ their nose or ear?

Moving down to the mouth region, I have seen more people oblivious to the fact that a gigantic spaghetti noodle is draped through their lip ring. And when a tongue ring gets accidentally wedged between two teeth, it creates an embarrassing lisp. Or maybe it wasnâ€™t accidental. Who am I to judge?

Moving south, we encounter the nipple ring, most strange, since this is usually not even seen! Where did the inspiration for this come from? Was the little extra bit of flesh just too tempting for early piercers? I dread the day when the ring ceremony at a wedding involves the exchange of these. Time to turn the video camera on the audience!

Then thereâ€™s the navel ring. Now this does have some practical application. Close the belly button with a ring and you keep it clean by preventing the accumulation of cookie crumbs while eating in bed. Or cache your diamond ring there for safe keeping. Maybe this could be the modern equivalent of the old locket necklace, where a cherished photo of your nearest and dearest is hidden.

Thatâ€™s as far south as Iâ€™m willing to go. I donâ€™t even want to picture other sites. I wonder how many holes the human body can sustain without leaking. Just saying!

4 Way Stops

Context Pros — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 10:49:57 +0700

I live in a town of about 30,000 people with approximately 20, 4-way stop intersections. For those of you who live in a big city, youâ€™ve probably never heard of them! They have nothing at all in common with that wonderful , functional, and very practical traffic control invention, the clover leaf, or its namesake the lucky 4 leaf clover. My town is a 4-way stop haven, the place where all abused, misused and rejected ones are sent.

So you arrive at one of these little wonders that are supposed to make the traffic run smoothly, and you are the first of two cars to arrive at the same intersection. Does it really matter? Scenario number one sees the other guy butting ahead of you, and you either have to yield to him or strike him in the driverâ€™s door.

Scenario number two is even more frustrating. The other car has clearly arrived several seconds before you, but, being a senior in a town full of seniors who think we are all just out for a Sunday drive, he doesnâ€™t go. You wait a few seconds, wondering why, when you notice he is motioning you on with the friendly index-finger wave (a Canadian thing). You are infuriated by this show of courtesy, because you both would have been long gone if he had just taken his turn, then let you follow. Just what did that accomplish?

Scenario three is a real fiasco! Four cars arrive at the same time at the intersection. No one can decide who should go first, but then you remember that your driverâ€™s manual said that the guy on your right has the right-of-way, so you give the Canadian finger wave again to him, but notice that he is isnâ€™t seeing you because heâ€™s waving the guy on his right ahead who is waving the guy on his right ahead who is waving you ahead. And then the traffic dance begins. You finally decide to be proactive and start through the intersection, just as each of the other three decide the same thing. You all abruptly stop, then start ahead, stop, start, until youâ€™re gridlocked in the middle of the intersection and wracked with whiplash (We know a good chiro if you need one). By now, you each have several cars behind you waiting, so you canâ€™t back up either. With a remarkably coordinated motion, all four of you pick up your cell phones with one hand to inform your boss/wife/doctorâ€™s office that youâ€™ll be late because of some numbskulls, as you each use your free hand to give a more universal signal with your finger.

Nice day for a walk!

QR Code Performance Tracking

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 15:03:18 +0700

You see QR codes pop up around you in window fronts, magazines, posters and more. Have you ever thought to create your own QR codes? Here are a few tips on getting the most out of these fancy bar codes.Â A couple things to keep in mind- QR codes can have a dedicated function, such as a URL or a phone number; and secondly, the smaller the amount of information "stored" in the QR code, the simpler the resulting graphic will be. I will be focusing on URL QR codes. You can use these to create links to web pages.

Step 1. Create your URL

You probably think you already have your URL, but pay attention. You are linking to your website where you should have Google Analytics running and tracking everything. You should create a link that will help create better data in your Google Analytics. Enter the Google Analytics URL Builder (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en). Use this tool to create your unique link with information such as where you plan to have the QR codes appear. Are you printing them on your business cards? Are you printing them on posters? You should make separate links for these kinds of things so you can track the performance of each QR code.

Step 2. Shorten your URL

That Google Analytics URL is quite lengthy and will create a more detailed QR code image. Now you should shorten it to simplify it. I recommend Google's own shortening service goo.gl, which is quick, reliable and tracks clicks (in this case, scans), but you can of course choose your own URL shortener here. Check out the difference in the resulting QR codes with a shortened URL.

Step 3. Create your QR code graphic

There are plenty of QR code generators on the Internet. Just pick one. Two examples are the-qrcode-generator.com and qrcode.kaywa.com. That first one even has the URL shortening built in, but I still recommend using your own URL shortener to keep track of the stats by yourself- there's no need to further depend on the QR generator service after creating your QR code image. Remember to pick URL as your QR code type, and don't bother with the "Dynamic" setting. Pick a size, larger is better because you can always downscale later, and save your image. I recommend naming your image with details of your links and campaigns so you don't have to keep scanning it yourself and ruin your statistics.

That's it. Just remember these easy steps and your QR marketing campaign will have the necessary stats to measure the performance. Do you have any additional tips? Please share them in the comments.

How to Install Minecraft Mods

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:39:53 +0700

Minecraft is a wonderful open world sandbox game with a ton of freedom to do whatever you want. On top of all that, the game can be modified, or modded, to add to, remove from, or change the way the game looks or behaves. We'll look into how to install various kinds of mods for Minecraft on Windows. Remember to close Minecraft and back up your worlds before installing any new mods.

Back up your worlds

Open the Minecraft installation directory. To find it, press the Windows key on your keyboard or click the start button on the taskbar and type "%appdata%" (without the quotes) and hit enter. This should open up an explorer window and you'll find a folder called .minecraft (including that dot) near to or at the top. Remember that bit because for modding Minecraft you'll be going in there a lot. In there is a folder called "saves". Your worlds are in there. You can either copy the entire "saves" folder to a safe location, or go inside it and back up individual worlds.

Mod packs

There are some mod packs that are pretty popular such as Technic (Tekkit), Yogbox or Feed the Beast and the fun part of those is that you just download their designated launcher and it will take care of the rest for you. Currently, modding Minecraft is a bit of a messy business as we'll see later in the article, but these launchers with mod packs get rid of all the fuss. All you need to do is download the launcher exe file and run it. After choosing your mod pack (in launchers that support multiple packs or customizable packs) it will download and install the mods automatically. Another benefit is that it doesn't affect your default Minecraft installation, it's like installing a new game.

Check out:
- technic pack
- feed the beast

Texture Packs

Texture packs are very simple mods that change the appearance of the game. Standard texture packs are also very easy to install, because they are in the same resolution as the default Minecraft texture- 16x16. Any higher and it's considered a high resolution,or HD, texture pack and will require a special mod to handle, for example Optifine which will be discussed in the next bit. Besides that, to install a texture pack, find one online and download it. It'll be a zip file, don't worry about unzipping it. Browse to your Minecraft installation folder ("%appdata%" and then .minecraft), and inside find a folder called texturepacks and move your downloaded zip file into it. That's it for standard resolution texture packs. Just launch the game now and pick your texture pack from the menu.

If you're using one of the Mod Packs mentioned earlier, you need to go into their respective installation folders instead of the .minecraft folder to add texture packs. You will need to do some extra searching to make sure your texture pack is compatible with the mods.

Simple Mod Installation

Most simple mods require a bit of dirty work, but it's still simple enough to do even for beginners. Download your mod, it should be a zip file, and keep it somewhere else on your computer temporarily and use a program such as 7-Zip to "open archive". Leave it like that for now. Open your Minecraft installation folder ("%appdata%" and then .minecraft) and open the folder called "bin". There will be a few Java files in there. Find the one called minecraft.jar and open it with a program such as 7-Zip (Right-click, 7-Zip, Open Archive), it will open up just like a zip file. Now from your mod zip archive that you opened earlier, select all the contents and drag them into the minecraft.jar archive. Lastly, delete the folder called META-INF in the minecraft.jar archive and then close it up. Now launch the game and see if it worked. This is also how you install Optifine which you need for high definition texture packs. There are other solutions for supporting HD textures, but Optifine is the one I prefer.

In case of failure when trying the install mods, which is not unusual, you can reset your Minecraft installation by choosing to force update in the Minecraft launcher.

Using a Mod Loader

There are mods that supposedly make installing subsequent mods easier. Usually, installing the Mod Loader is the same process as the previous "simple mod installation", but from then on, you can use its graphic interface to install subsequent mods. Read up beforehand to see which mods are compatible with the Mod Loader you choose.

This guide should help you get started with modding Minecraft. Remember, the more mods you install at once, the less stable the game becomes. Not all mods work well together. If you have questions or comments, they are very welcome in the comments below.
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HOW TO TICK PEOPLE OFF

Nathalie van den Berg — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 19:09:43 +0700

1 Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200%, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
2 In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors."
3 Specify that your drive-through order is "TO-GO."
4 If you have a glass eye, tap on it occasionally with your pen while talking to others.
5 Stomp on little plastic ketchup packets.
6 Insist on keeping your car windshield wipers running in all weather conditions "to keep them tuned up."
7 Reply to everything someone says with "that's what you think."
8 Practice making fax and modem noises.
9 Highlight irrelevant information in scientific papers and "cc" them to your boss.
10 Make beeping noises when a large person backs up.
11 Finish all your sentences with the words "in accordance with prophesy."
12 Signal that a conversation is over by clamping your hands over your ears and grimacing.
13 Disassemble your pen and "accidentally" flip the ink cartridge across the room.
14 Holler random numbers while someone is counting.
15 Adjust the tint on your TV so that all the people are green, and insist to others that you "like it that way."
16 Staple pages in the middle of the page.
17 Publicly investigate just how slowly you can make a croaking noise.
18 Honk and wave to strangers.
19 Decline to be seated at a restaurant, and simply eat their complimentary mints at the cash register.
20 TYPE IN UPPERCASE.
21 type only in lowercase.
22 dont use any punctuation either
23 Buy a large quantity of orange traffic cones and reroute whole streets.
24 Repeat the following conversation a dozen times.
"DO YOU HEAR THAT?"
"What?"
"Never mind, it's gone now."
25 As much as possible, skip rather than walk.
26 Try playing the William Tell Overture by tapping on the bottom of your chin. When nearly done, announce "No, wait, I messed it up," and repeat.
27 Ask people what gender they are.
28 While making presentations, occasionally bob your head like a parakeet.
29 Sit in your front yard pointing a hair dryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
30 Sing along at the opera.
31 Go to a poetry recital and ask why each poem doesn't rhyme.
32 Ask your co-workers mysterious questions and then scribble their answers in a notebook. Mutter something about "psychological profiles."

What if we were the ants?

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:41:23 +0700

Ants are little insignificant creatures to us. Sure they serve their purpose in the ecosystem, but they don't impact our daily routines if we can help it. Whenever we aren't trying to get rid of them in our kitchens we generally don't think about them. Only children may play with them a little... and when I say "play" I mean "torturous genocide".

Now from the ant's perspective. I don't think that ants can comprehend us humans. I think that they don't look up and think "holy crap, what a giant being". We are beyond their comprehension. They cannot imagine what it's like to be us, let alone imagine what we would think of them, the ants. To tell you the truth, I think the ant's imagination is very limited.

Think about these examples. If it rains or if you turn on the sprinkler system in your yard, I don't think ants would know the difference. If ants were crawling over a natural rock formation or over your driveway, I don't think ants would know the difference. If there was a medium strengths tornado or you mowing the lawn with a gas powered lawn mower, I don't think ants would know the difference.

Now what if we were the ants? Sure we will know the difference between our sprinkler system and rain. But what about when it rains? Is that really always just rain or is it possible something else is happening that we can't distinguish from rain? That something else could be caused by some other thing. If we were the ants, who or what would be the humans?

Right away I want to stop you from assuming that I refer these higher creatures as gods but you are very free to believe that they are if you like. This kind of concept will quickly turn religious as it has done throughout history. What are gods after all? Does that make us gods to the ants? And now if we're on the topic of gods we'll have to talk about meddling. Our gods are generally very concerned or interested in us simple humans. It's almost as if they have nothing better to do. I bet there are a couple of humans who are quite interested in ants too. Some scientists or hobbyists with an ant farm may exact godlike behavior towards the ants. But do the ants realize that they are in a confined space under constant observation by beings they cannot begin to understand?

Just to quickly jump to my original comparison where we are in the place of the ants. Would they perceive it as a natural disaster when we clear out their nest from between the stepping stones? What kind of natural disasters could we or should we attribute to higher beings not because of justice or punishment but just to clean up or even worse, just by accident. Think of all the occasions where the ground you were walking on had ants crawling around and how little effort you put into not stepping on them. That was quite the wrath of the gods if we were in their place.

So next time you see a couple of ants on your kitchen table, what will you do to them?

Mobile Ramblings

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:58:13 +0700

We are in an age now where we all walk around with smartphones that are capable of limitless possibilities. The phone in your pocket now likely has more computing power than the lunar landers used in the Apollo program. Apps and updated operating systems keep broadening the range of options available at the touch of a screen. It has come to the point now where I will be composing most or all of my Ramblings from my phone.

Typing large volumes of text on a phone is not exactly the pinnacle of technology at this point, but constructing complete words and sentences with adequate spelling, punctuation and grammar seems to be an artform that is not flourishing on mobile devices. The tools available to us to type on mobile devices are also getting smarter. Keyboards aren't simply places where you key your words in letter by letter. Things like auto-correct, auto-complete and even smart keyboards that learn your typing style and predict the words you will type next make it all much easier for you to put your thoughts down despite the size of your fingers.

I am currently typing this using the smart keyboard mention above just now. SwiftKey on my Android 4.0 device is making this text composition a breeze. Of course these Google phones have some other tricks up their sleeves. Text-to-speech is all the rage these days so I will attempt the next paragraph I sing only that. If the text isn't recognized and worded as I intend then I will retry it, but I will make a note of the number of attempts it took and in case there were errors I will mention them as well.

Speaking to your phone can be a little bit awkward but it'll save you some time. It is potentially also a lot faster than typing out each and every single word. Just to let you know and to be honest with you I have made only minor corrections in the text that it has so far recorded. I am also manually putting in the punctuation at the end of the sentences. Nevertheless, this is a very advanced input method.

Now I do get the feeling that the voice input is handled slightly differently through the SwiftKey keyboard as through the stock Android one. In Android 4.0, the stock speech-to-text option actually starts putting down text while you are still talking. In Android 4.1 Jelly Bean you won't even need an Internet connection as you do now.

In short, it's getting easier and easier to write up what you need with more accuracy and less effort on mobile devices. I personally only have experience with Android phones but I'm sure that iDevices are not far behind. Let's hear about your experience with mobile text input in the comments below.

So that was 2011

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:45:30 +0700

The year has gone by quickly. We had good times and bad times. Let's look back and, off the top of my head, check out some of the things that stand out.

Flooding

Bangkok is still dealing with the floods and I wish them all the best for the coming year while trying to recover. About a week before, though, we had a 2 day flood crisis up in Chiang Mai too. Water rose quickly and it came within inches of testing my sandbag barrier inside my front door. It was quite a stressful time. I know it doesn't hold a flame to what's happened in the south, but it's definitely one of the major events in my year.

Youtube

I've been very active on my Youtube channel. In recent months I've uploaded over 100 videos and I'm still going strong. We'll see what it turns into in 2012. Here's a little piece of fact- I think you can look back and detect a serious drop of activity on RalphvandenBerg.com, Twitter and Facebook since I'm voicing all my stuff on Youtube.

Beercamp

I've been (re-)introduced to Beercamp and Barcamp this year. It's a great community of similar minded people and a sweet new excuse to go out for beers! Beercamp is open for everyone but if you're not into computers in some way you might not fit in as well. Also, beer.

Travels

With better finances and transportation comes better recreational mobility. Big words, I just mean I'm getting out of the house more often and visiting some destinations for the sake of getting out of the house. My girlfriend likes to take pictures and if you got me on Facebook, you'll know what I mean.

Games

Some great games this year. Minecraft definitely makes the list. Skyrim is another (late comer) contender for a major time suck. This kind of goes hand in hand with the Youtube entry above because most of what I do is upload gameplay commentary videos.

What else?

There are probably many things that I'll think of later and I might mention them in the comments below. If you have some awesome (good or bad) moments or features from 2011 and you want to share- use the comments below!

Tutorial on how to record Minecraft gameplay videos

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 20:19:19 +0700

Update (22 March 2012): I have since learned much and improved my methods. Check out this tutorial I've posted on Youtube: http://youtu.be/CJzPZTR9PpI

You may or may not have seen some of my videos on Youtube. Iâ€™ve started a Letâ€™s Play Minecraft series called â€œRalph plays Minecraftâ€, if you have some time please check it out! Itâ€™s tons of fun and Iâ€™m getting some friends involved as well. I try to bring out videos on a daily basis so donâ€™t forget to subscribe to my Youtube Channel. Iâ€™ll really appreciate it!

So how does it all work? I am writing this guide to explain how I go about recording Minecraft videos. This is not the absolute end-all way of doing this, but if youâ€™re curious or a beginner then this should be interesting to you. I basically figured all of this out on my own, so if you have any tips or suggestions they are welcome!

Requirements, running on Windows 7:

Minecraft (The game you want to record)
Fraps (The software that can record games)
Windows Live Movie Maker (Keep it simple, it does the job)
Microphone (For your voice)
20 to 50 Gigabytes of free hard disk space or more (Files get big very fast)

The First Time:

Install Minecraft, Fraps, etc.
Fraps settings- make sure you store the video recordings where you have room for them. Disable the F11 hotkey (This toggles viewing of the frames/second, but it conflicts with Minecraft toggling to full screen). If you want to record your voice and game sounds, make sure those settings are set accordingly.
Do some test recordings (using the steps from â€œEvery Timeâ€ below) and set the game sound and music levels down or off, depending on what works better. (I have sound down to 30% and music off). Make sure you can play and record your voice in a comfortable position and with comfortable volume levels.

Every Time:

Set desktop screen resolution to 1280x720. This should be no problem for people with that resolution or higher in 16:9 aspect ratio.
Do a sound check. Check if the microphone is properly plugged in and sounds okay (no static or interference).
Start Fraps and minimize the window.
Start Minecraft, open your world, and maximize the window with F11
Play Minecraft, use F5 to start/stop recording. Remember to leave a small buffer between playing/speaking and starting or stopping the recording. You can always trim that out. Itâ€™s a good idea to time yourself. Have fun and relax- youâ€™re mood greatly affects the end result.
If youâ€™re done for the day, close Minecraft and Fraps.
Return your screen resolution to its original state.
Time to produce the video. Open Windows Live Movie Maker and import all your footage.
Edit your video. Put in a splash screen. Add music. Do whatever. This tutorial doesnâ€™t cover this part in depth. Set the aspect ratio in Windows Live Movie Maker to 16:9 under the â€œProjectâ€ tab.
When saving (exporting) your movie, pick â€œfor Zune HD (720p)â€. Thatâ€™s it, your done! You can upload them to Youtube or just watch them with your friends.

Notes:

If you have A LOT more hard disk space and a fast computer, you could change all the recordings to 1080p, just change all instances of â€œ1280x720â€ to â€œ1920x1080â€ and export your movie to that higher resolution format as well. You can also record in a lower resolution by adjusting the appropriate steps or even just skipping them, but I donâ€™t recommend doing this.
Your voice sounds weird. It will take a long time to get used to it. The thing is, it only sounds weird to yourself. You sound just like you always do to others. Just get over the uncomfortable â€œDo I sound like that?!?â€ feeling and move on.
I do some multi-player game recordings too. I run the Minecraft server on my computer alongside everything else above. For multi-player audio recording you will need an additional microphone and an audio split-plug-thingy to feed them both into your audio-in jack. Needless to say this will require double the amount of sound-checking every time but all the other steps pretty much stays the same.

Thanks for reading. I hope this has been helpful to you. If you havenâ€™t already done so, check out my Minecraft videos on Youtube and subscribe! Follow @RPMinecraft on Twitter for more Minecraft related goodies.

How to Ruin a Wedding as a Photographer

Stephen Elias — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:15:56 +0700

The invitations are sent, the guests have arrived, and the bride is ready to walk down the aisle... but the photographer is nowhere to be found. While most wedding photographers are contractors, not participants, they play a huge part in a wedding's success. Show up late (or not at all), forget the film or focus on the wrong details and you can easily ruin a coupleâ€™s big day. Read on for a list of what "not" to do when you photograph a wedding.

Don't Check the Site in Advance: By not bothering to visit the church or reception hall, you'll save yourself plenty of time. You'll also miss pesky details like the lack of lighting at the church and the gaping hole in the wall at the reception hall. The bride and groom know who they are, so they don't need clear, well lit photos, right? Wrong! Scouting sites in advance will help you pick up on all those little details that make a big impact in your finished photos and save you from scrambling for locations on the big day.

Focus on the Wrong Guests: Sure, the bride and groom are the ones footing the bill, but the cute bridesmaid in the low cut gown is much more photogenic, right? Wrong! While pictures of the wedding party and guests are important, make sure you aren't distracted by a pretty face. The bride doesn't need 4 photos of her much prettier cousin.

Don't Bother with Insurance: Insurance is a waste of money, what could go wrong?
When the groom's grandma trips over your light stand; or you realize you shot the entire wedding party sans film, everyone will understand, right? Wrong! As a photographer, you open yourself to lawsuits if someone is injured by your equipment or if you fail to deliver the goods. Invest in a good insurance plan to protect yourself and your business before snapping a single exposure.

Start Big - Really Big: If you just received a camera for Christmas, and simply know you are a great photographer, book a friend's wedding as your first gig. The bride and groom will enjoy paying professional rates for amateur photos, and the best way to learn about the business is to jump in with both feet for a big event, right? Wrong! You should already have professional equipment and skills and have assisted at a few weddings or large events before attempting one on your own. Weddings are huge, once in a lifetime events, and you won't get the chance to reshoot when your $100 Walmart camera lets you down.

Don't Have a Backup Plan: You've picked out the perfect outdoor location for the wedding portraits, so your job is done for the big day, right? Wrong! People get married every day of the year, and rain, snow and inclement weather can happen. Choose an indoor venue as a backup, and make sure you have permission to shoot there, just in case you get caught in a storm.

How to convince others you're not a zombie

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:49:29 +0700

Being a zombie is no laughing matter. Speaking of matter itâ€™s probably more of a brain matter if anything. If you turn into a zombie you will turn on your friends and family to kill and/or infect them unless they are already zombies. To put you out of your misery and to stop you from being a total douche they should put a bullet through your head or decapitate you in some manner. This is why itâ€™s important to make sure that they donâ€™t think you are zombie if you arenâ€™t. Hereâ€™s a quick guide to convincing your friends and family that youâ€™re not one of the walking dead.

Swat flies

If flies land on you, make sure to react by trying to swat them. Donâ€™t worry if you hit your friend in the face in the process or if you knock over that porcelain flower vase. Itâ€™s vital that flies donâ€™t have the time to lay eggs in you because once they hatch, all those larvae will appear as a sign of zombification. Just remember it this way: Bugs bug you!

Donâ€™t be a tough guy

If something hurts, donâ€™t be afraid to let people know. Physical pain is a good indication of being human and if you try to man up and hide your reaction to the pain it looks as though you never felt it. If you break your arm or ankle go to the hospital, get a doctor to look at it and put a cast around it. Donâ€™t be shy to walk with crutches. Remember, a zombie wouldnâ€™t use crutches!

Be polite

One of the first human things that go when turning into a zombie is politeness. It doesnâ€™t hurt anyone to smile a little. When someone opens a door for you remember to say â€œthank youâ€ and most importantly respect other peopleâ€™s physical boundaries. If you want to get someoneâ€™s attention, instead of reaching out with your arms extended, try â€œexcuse me, sirâ€ or â€œexcuse me, madamâ€ whatever the case may be. Just a tiny effort on your part put into being polite may be the difference between a machete in your forehead or not.

Stay away from other zombies

This may seem obvious because other zombies will try to eat you, but itâ€™s also important to know that sometimes zombies may look just like you and outsiders may not be able to tell the difference. If you want to make sure no mistakes are made, perhaps with souped-up bulldozers or other vehicles with mounted chainsaws, take the time to walk the long way and avoid the horde.

Personal Hygiene

The last piece of advice I have for you is that you should take time every morning, at the very least, to wash up and get that rotting corpse smell off of you. Put on some clean clothes and put that blood-soaked shirt in the laundry. They have special detergents for those kinds of things. Putting on some deodorant will go a long way and combing your hair and tying up your shoelaces will work miracles when others are trying to distinguish you from the living dead.

If you have some tips on how to convince others that youâ€™re not a zombie, please share them in the comments. (by the way, zombies and humans are both allowed to comment)

Confusing Crap

Darryl Crist — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:12:26 +0700

If you defecate because you are indifferent, does that mean that you take a crap cause you don't give a crap?

Even More Stuff to Watch

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 13 May 2011 17:25:31 +0700

This is part 3. Check out the first 2 Ramblings of recommended stuff for TV here and here.

I like watching TV and so Iâ€™ll share with you what Iâ€™m watching so if youâ€™re looking for something to watch, youâ€™ve come to the right place. Check out the other Ramblings mentioned above to get more suggestions. I havenâ€™t been watching a lot of new things lately because many of the shows Iâ€™ve reviewed in previous Ramblings are still running, so this time Iâ€™ve decided to include a couple of Youtube Channels that I think are worth watching or following. As before, if youâ€™ve got some recommendations, please stick them in the comments below.

Stargate Universe

Cancelled after season 2
The Stargate series have been around for a while. I used to enjoy watching Stargate SG1 with the guy from McGuyver and a few other memorable characters. Itâ€™s not required that you have any Stargate history for Stargate Universe, but I do recommend it. The way this Stargate works is a bunch of guys, some more and some less professionally connected to the gate itself, get stranded on the other side of the universe in an ancient ship. I said other side of the universe, yes, not the other side of the galaxy, so chances of them ever getting back are slim. This series has a very good continual storyline and true character development that makes you keep coming back.

The Walking Dead

Currently on season 2
Zombies are trending. Movies and TV shows need iconic bad guys and currently Zombies are the most politically and racially neutral. It was either that, or aliens. The Walking Dead takes your classic zombie virus outbreak and stretches it out into a TV series. In this format you get better character development and sub-plots which are generally less common in zombie movies. You still get your dose of zombie slaughter so if you donâ€™t like seeing gruesome decapitation and rotting corpses walking around, you better find something else to watch.

Youtube: The Key of Awesome

http://www.youtube.com/user/barelypolitical
Barely Political can most easily be compared to Weird Al. They make spoof music videos which are very clever and funny but they do bunches of other videos and the crew of Barely Political, namely Mark and Todd, are very talented and funny guys.

Youtube: Rooster Teeth

http://www.youtube.com/user/roosterteeth
Roosterteeth is also known as Achievement Hunter. They mostly do video game walkthroughs. This sounds like it will only interest a small audience, and that is kind of true. I recommend it because itâ€™s entertaining regardless. Two of the hosts, Jack and Geoff, have a good dynamic and itâ€™s their commentary that make the videos enjoyable to watch. Iâ€™ll say one thing, I donâ€™t have an XBox or Playstation and donâ€™t play nearly all of the games they make videos for.Â Theyâ€™ve got a couple of fun repeating themes which are good to follow: Fails of the Weak, Achievement Horse, Rage Quit, and very notably Red vs. Blue. Check it out even if youâ€™re not a gamer.

Youtube: Equals Three

http://www.youtube.com/user/raywilliamjohnson
Iâ€™ve mentioned Equals Threeâ€™s Ray William Johnson in an earlier rambling (The Age of Vloggers). Itâ€™s quite simple what he does, he takes about 3 other clips from Youtube that are funny or weird or whatever and â€œreviewsâ€ them. His videos are cut together well and the commentary in between actually adds to the video whereas when some others try it it just gets annoying.

Youtube: The Onion

http://www.youtube.com/user/theonion
The Onion is a mock newspaper or news channel. They do spoofs of the real news which in itself is enough to win some people over, but they do it on such a professional level that you couldnâ€™t tell it apart from real CNN or BBC news clips if you missed out on the joke. One notably interesting thing to watch on The Onion is â€œInventoryâ€ that picks weird or strange things from movies or books and talk about them. The news segments are especially hilarious if you can show them to someone whoâ€™s never heard of The Onion and doesnâ€™t know they are spoofs.

Bin Laden, my thoughts on his death

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 03 May 2011 14:20:39 +0700

Osama Bin Laden, the face of terrorism as we know it, is dead. If this is the first time youâ€™re reading this news, welcome to the world because youâ€™ve obviously been excluded from the human race up until now. Twitter has seen records broken with the news after Obama made the announcement from the White House. Like many people who took to the street singing and rejoicing I was happy to hear the news, but there are some thoughts and what better place to voice them than in this Rambling.

So, first of all, congratulations! I feel like high-fiving Barack, but Iâ€™m afraid that the term â€œMission Accomplishedâ€ only applies to the mission that week that resulted in the assassination of the terrorist leader. Youâ€™ve probably heard others saying the same thing- the act of killing Osama Bin Laden is symbolic at best. Itâ€™s only the face, the mascot of terrorism that now is no more. Like how Phil (phillyd.tv) put it: you donâ€™t shut down the entire McDonalds chain if you kill Ronald McDonald. What Iâ€™m afraid is more likely to happen is severe retaliation out of anger. I know Iâ€™m not the only one with this idea because all American embassies all over the world are beefing up security and warning American citizens of potential assholism.

What else? Burying him at sea. I think itâ€™s a weird thing to call it â€œburyingâ€ when itâ€™s at sea. You bury people under dirt, not water. Either way, smart move because this way there can be no shrine or something built under water by his followers. Actually, letâ€™s invite all his followers to where heâ€™s â€œburiedâ€ to build a shrine! Not a bad idea after all!

In the sequence of events, which started in September, 2001, it now feels like itâ€™s in the part after the climax. Imagine if this was a movie, the capture/kill of the evil boss by special forces would be the highlight, followed shortly by credits and a text-based end to the rest of the story. But damn! This was a long, drawn out movie! It took nearly 10 years of combined effort from powerful nationsâ€™ military and para-military forces to hunt down this one man. Does it not quietly tickle your brain that it happened with perfect timing for Obamaâ€™s re-election campaign? I really donâ€™t want to make assumptions, but itâ€™s kind of in your face.

Finally, I love all the humor thatâ€™s coming out of this situation. My personal favorite is Obama saying â€œAnyone else want to see my birth certificate?â€ just before throwing down the mike and leaving the stage. Of course now the hot question people are asking each other: where were you when you heard the news? Please share in the comments below.

9 Great Things about Twitter

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:06:49 +0700

I was honestly planning on doing 10 Things I like about Twitter but Iâ€™ve been stuck at 9 for a while now. Itâ€™s Twitterâ€™s birthday, turning 5 now so instead of pondering for the last great thing, I decided to cut back by one and get this out on the webs. Iâ€™ll be brief- here are 9 things Iâ€™ll bring up in favor of Twitter.

1. Short and Sweet.

The character limit really lets you be creative. It gets into some messy SMS type spelling and grammar but itâ€™s really easy to get something published on the Internet without having to write up 3 to 5 hundred words (like this Rambling).

2. No distractions

Of course there are tons of distractions, but what I mean is you tweet, follow other tweets, and thatâ€™s kind of it. Thereâ€™s no tagging, joining groups, poking, etc. Very simple objectives. I call it a kind of NBS approach. (Iâ€™ll explain NBS on request only).

3. Tweet anywhere

Twitter really works well on mobile devices where you get to tweet something about where you are now. You wonâ€™t always be at a PC or laptop, and my guess it the most interesting things happen when you are away from them.

4. No rules

Besides the character limit you really can tweet however you want. You can have multiple twitter accounts and use the tweets for any purpose. Your blog or facebook account can automatically publish to your twitter or vice versa, itâ€™s all good.

5. Tweet how you like (Apps)

There are tons of ways to use the Twitter service. There are tons of apps for desktops, mobile devices and web based ones. Use the one you like.

6. Use your tweets for any purpose

You can just post links or spam people. You can post whatever you happen to be eating at the moment or you can post actual interesting things. You can use your tweets to update your website, publish the latest specials or upcoming promotions.

7. Simple privacy settings

Either you protect your tweets or you donâ€™t. Thatâ€™s all there is to it. Public or private. On or off.

8. Itâ€™s about the now

A single tweet expires really fast. Depending on where the tweets end up, they could be valid only a few minutes or just one day. On your twitter timeline if you follow a couple of people, older tweets get pushed down off the timeline pretty quick.

9. Optional Anonymity

With Twitter you donâ€™t have to be you. Your twitter account can be the business or a fictional character or an automated feed publisher.

There we go. A quick rundown of 9 things I like about Twitter. Much of this is debatable of course; I welcome it in the comments below.

Iâ€™ve got a couple of Twitters, feel free to follow:
@ralphvandenberg and @rvdbdotcom

Some more stuff to watch

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:00:13 +0700

Iâ€™ve recently wrote about some Stuff you should be watching, and you can consider this a part 2 or a follow up on that. Just a quick recap on the shows I posted about last time. I think Sons of Anarchy is done, they wrapped things up nicely. Futurama is between seasons. You never really knows with these kinds of shows. The Event, Chuck and Big Bang Theory are still steadily releasing episodes so Iâ€™m still watching those.

Hereâ€™s some more shows Iâ€™ve been enjoying. Notice this time Iâ€™ve included some shows to avoid. I gave them a fair chance- 3 to 5 episodes and if they donâ€™t get me then, screw it. As usual, I will try not to spoil anything so I might be a bit vague here and there.

Spartacus - Blood and Sand

Currently on Season 1 (2?)

Spartacus Blood and Sand is very cool for those who enjoy a blend of Gladiator, 300 and a hard R-rating. Thereâ€™s a Thracian who ends up getting screwed by the Romans and ends up in Gladiator school. Itâ€™s pretty gritty in there and you get some pretty graphic fight slo-moâ€™s that weâ€™ve become familiar with in there era movies. I say heâ€™s in Gladiator school because I havenâ€™t really watched that much of it yet and even if I did I donâ€™t want to spoil anything.

This series is not really of the easy-viewing type. Thereâ€™s a fair share of language/violence/sex in each episode, but if you like that- hey!

True Blood

Currently on Season 4

The easiest way to describe True Blood is itâ€™s like Twilight but you take all the gay chick-flick out of it and replace it with good old sex, drugs and rock â€˜n roll. Each season has a supernatural villain and there are a bunch of other supernatural powers at play with humans in the middle or sometimes taking a strong side in the battles and wars that happen in the shadows.

The main character is a mind-reader (potentially more than that) girl named Suki and she has some love interests in the vampire community and some other communities. Plus vampire blood is a very popular drug among humans and werewolves. Just go ahead and watch it, although if I remember correctly, itâ€™s kind of a slow start.

Firefly

Canceled in Season 1

Firefly aired briefly showing episodes in the wrong order. Basically the network screwed it up. Itâ€™s a great 14 episodes which I highly recommend getting the box set for or something. Itâ€™s kind of a science fiction show but definitely feels more like a western. There are 9 very unique characters with rich backgrounds and after just 1 or 2 episodes you really â€œlikeâ€ them. Thereâ€™s a very good balance with action, humor and drama and the last thing anybody should do is not give Firefly a chance because â€œtheyâ€™re not into scifiâ€. Firefly is a great show; part of me wants to stop writing about Firefly for fear of not doing it justice.

Oh, when after youâ€™re done watching it (twice, three times?) you should see the movie: Serenity.

Avoid: Smallville

Currently on Season 10

Smallville is Superman before heâ€™s become a man. So itâ€™s super-boy, or super-teen. Itâ€™s basically a bunch of super-puberty with the occasional teen-romance and evil super-villain. Iâ€™m just so bored with this emotionally insecure Clark Kent dealing with high school and not enjoying his super powers. Think about it: if you realized you were invulnerable, would you go whining about it to your stepparents or would you go about robbing banks and flying around the world? At least the first bit when you have the new powers but not the responsibility just yet. Of course itâ€™s not the right thing to do, but thatâ€™s what makes this series so dull and boring. Little Kent is such a pussy angel I canâ€™t stand it. Grow a pair!

Avoid: The Cape

Currently on Season 1

Ex-cop is framed and becomes a superhero. This is the kind of superhero thatâ€™s less dependant on mutation like batman so I should like it, but not here. I think it may have something to do with the comic book feel they try to give it. I was never really a comic book guy (if you donâ€™t count Suske en Wiske); I know Batman from TV and movies and I donâ€™t like Spiderman. Another part that bothers me is the main heroâ€™s family. To me it really feels like itâ€™s slowing the story down to the point where I dislike the characters that the protagonist cares most about. It just doesnâ€™t work for me.

Honorable Mention: Pioneer One

Currently on Season 1

Pioneer One is a non-tv type series. I believe they just run on donations and you can download it or watch it online for free (as in beer). The story line is a mystery involving some old soviet Mars mission. Itâ€™s a bit slow off the bat but the mystery will draw most of you in like it did me. At the time of writing this only 2 episodes have been released and the next bunch depends, like I said earlier, on folks like you and me putting in a couple bucks or buying a T-shirt. Check out [pioneerone.tv] for more information.

As usual, I'd like to hear what you like to watch, or which shows you think we should all avoid. Please use the comment area below. Thanks!

My Views on Time Travel

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:45:14 +0700

Time Travel is a delicate subject like aliens or alternate universes. Itâ€™s stuff thatâ€™s entirely possible in some form or another in the future, near or far, but it will get you ridiculed in some closed-minded circles. Iâ€™m lucky Iâ€™m not a scientist surrounded by other scientists so I can say what I want and not worry about whether my writings will be published.

Time travel is quite tricky because of all the catch-22 scenarios that are bundled with it. A famous example is of a man who travels back in time and murders his grandfather. Does that prevent his father, and by extension, him, from being born? Then if he wasnâ€™t born he couldnâ€™t have gone back in time to kill his grandfather, thus undoing this father from not being born. If youâ€™re headâ€™s spinning now, thatâ€™s fine. Thatâ€™s supposed to happen.

Types of Time Travel

In order to continue we need to break down the general subject of time travel into smaller categories depending on direction and techniques. By the way, Iâ€™m making up some of the following terminology, so don't expect to find it elsewhere.

Wait-stasis- This version of time travel is basically waiting unconsciously until the future comes. Sleeping is like that, where in a sense, you time-travel to the next morning. In movies itâ€™s more commonly done by freezing the subjects for periods of time. This gives the â€œtravelerâ€ the illusion of time travel because during the entire period they were frozen, no time has passed in their perspective and suddenly they wake up/thaw in the future. Obviously, this type of travel is â€œforward onlyâ€.

FLST (Fraction of Light Speed Travel, or Fractional Light Speed Travel)- This is another scientifically possible version of time travel. There are some advanced physics involved in this one, but in a nutshell the closer you come to traveling at the speed of light (about one billion km/hour) the more time slows down for you. Of course you donâ€™t realize time slowing, but when youâ€™re done traveling at a reasonable fraction of the speed of light for, say, one year, youâ€™ll realize that the rest of the world which wasnâ€™t traveling at a fraction of the speed of light has actually gotten more than one year older. This is another â€œforward onlyâ€ time travel method, because when you return to find more time passed than youâ€™ve experienced it appears to you as the future.
Read more about it in this post: Special Relativity 101 and do a google search for the â€œTwin Paradoxâ€.

Point-to-point- Point to point time travel is like using a telephone. What this means is that for â€œtravelâ€ to happen, you will need one device to send and another to receive. This is a more traditional science fiction method for time travel where you get the good old â€œtime machineâ€. The difference is that instead of a modified DeLorean you need two machines; one in the departure time and one in the destination time. This is an omnidirectional method of time travel, but with one very important limitation: you canâ€™t go back in time further than the invention of the machine itself. When such a machine is invented, everyone in the world would instantly know. Think about this: if backwards time travel existed, there is an infinite future with infinite possibilities to send back â€œmistakesâ€ that will have worldwide impacts. This method also offers an explanation for the question â€œif backwards time-travel is possible in the future, why havenâ€™t we seen any travelers yet?â€. The answer is simply that the â€œreceivingâ€ device hasnâ€™t been invented yet.

Subspace Tunneling- This kind of time travel is not man-made, but more taking advantage of natural occurrences. Spacetime (space+time; greater than the sum of itâ€™s parts!) could possibly have some â€œripplesâ€, â€œfoldsâ€ or â€œtearsâ€ that would allow us to skip along what we perceive as the natural timeline. This is also very important if we want to do some great distance traveling without incurring FLST time distortion. The fun part about subspace tunneling is that it will probably be completely random to us, and that weâ€™d not only travel in time, but also to other places (possibly outside of our universe). You remember â€œLost in Spaceâ€?

Portable Time Travel Device- Portable in this case doesnâ€™t necessarily mean you can carry it. It could be as big as a 12 storey building for all I care. In this case it means that you have your machine that letâ€™s you travel in time and it travels with you. This is your converted DeLorean as seen in the â€œBack to the Futureâ€ trilogy. I also believe that this is the least likely method of time travel, although it would seem to be the most convenient. This type of time travel doesnâ€™t have very many restrictions in terms of paradox prevention, so for the sake of the universe I hope that nobody invents one of these.

Fire and Forget- The last type of time travel I will discuss is similar to â€œpoint-to-pointâ€ time travel except there is no second receiver device or machine. The first machine sends the traveler into another point in time and thatâ€™s the end of the story. There are no returns, unless there is another â€œfire and forgetâ€ machine at the destination time. I almost want to chunk this type in with the â€œportable deviceâ€ time travel, because whatâ€™s stopping you from sending the â€œfire and forgetâ€ device along with the traveler so he or she can keep moving about?

Paradoxes and other problems

Time travel is a lot of fun in movies and thought experiments and in all fairness, forward time travel is perfectly safe for the continuity of the universe. The problems arise when information, devices, or people are able to travel backwards in time. Simply put they travel back and change the past causing a form of â€œbutterfly effectâ€ that alters the future from whence they came.

There are 2 solutions to the paradoxes (assuming backwards time-travel is possible). The first is that backwards time travel causes a fork in the road of time, causing a different universe where the future â€œhasnâ€™t happened yetâ€ and youâ€™re free to muck it up. The second is that backwards time travel is limited to an â€œobservation onlyâ€ clause, meaning that you are like an invisible ghost when you travel back and you can see and hear everything but you are unable to make any changes to the timeline or affect it in any way. This would be advantages for educational purposes, especially history class.

So here is my perception on time travel. Iâ€™m not dismissing anything completely and Iâ€™m sure there are some aspects I have forgotten to mention. If you have any thoughts on time travel, please donâ€™t be afraid to mention them in the comments below.

Update: Here's a video of the Twin Paradox explained.

HorecaSupply.com- new website

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:37:15 +0700

Once a while websites need a refresh. The appearance may seem outdated or just get a bit boring, but more importantly there are a ton of new features that you want to incorporate and sometimes the only way to do that is to start from scratch. I've finally managed to find a bit of time to refresh horecasupply.com and in this rambling I want to point out some of the new and improved things you can find there.

The Homepage

My personal idea of what the homepage should be is a page that gives the user an overview of what the rest of the website is all about. You should be able to get a complete experience just on the homepage and from there be able to go in more depth in specific areas of the rest of the website.

You'll see on Horeca's revamped homepage the Facebook feed, the Twitter feed, a spot for a special, a spot for the latest event pictures and the latest resource link. With this I hope to create a sense of dynamic-ness (what the hell is the word for that?) so that users have a reason to check back on the site every once in a while. There will be something new.

A bit of technical info: Facebook and Twitter's widgets are javascript based and their contents will not be indexed. To work around this, I've written a kind of "social media cache" that pulls the contents from Facebook and Twitter at most once every few hours and stores that info. It's displayed in noscript tags without special functionality like active hyperlinks and such but allows it to be indexed. Win.

Pictures pages

Another big improvement that could easily be overlooked by the casual browser is the use of hashtags for viewing individual images. Without getting too technical off the bat, it allows a viewer to copy the URL of the page while viewing a specific image and send that via email or whatever and when another user opens it they will initially start with that same image. Previously this was not possible because all images were shown asynchronously at the same URL.

The way it works is simply using a hashtag-checking function along with AJAX. This also allows users to use the browser's 'back' and 'forward' buttons to navigate through the image gallery.

Overall Look and Design

For a lot of the rest of the website, it was merely a matter of copy-pasting the old content into the new site. The big changes here is the design. The color scheme of the website is a lot lighter than the old version. To give it a clean and modern feel I've gone with white and light grays for most of the website, and kept using a aqua-blue for the highlights and red for the super highlights (rollovers, etc).

In my opinion it was the way to go; red and blue as your main color scheme is actually a lot harder than it seems. If you're just a bit careless you'll end up with a USA! look and that's not what we're going for. Anyway, I'd say check out the website and feel free to give me any feedback either through the comments here, on Facebook, or through the contact form on Horeca's website.

link: horecasupply.com

And speaking of Facebook, I would really highly appreciate any "likes" on the following pages. You guys rock.

Drafting Guys Over 60

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:40:01 +0700

I received this in my inbox this morning, and since I don't like to participate in mass-forwarding of emails I did the next best thing: post it online.

(This was obviously written by a Former US Soldier...)

New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60!

"I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I'm too old to track down terrorists. You can't be older than 42 to join the military. They've got the whole thing ass-backwards. Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn't be able to join a military unit until you're at least 35.

For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.

Young guys haven't lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. 'My back hurts! I can't sleep, I'm tired and hungry.' We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for awhile..

An 18-year-old doesn't even like to get up before 10am. Old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell. Besides, like I said, I'm tired and can't sleep and since I'm already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical son-of-a-bitch.

If captured we couldn't spill the beans because we'd forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.

Boot camp would be easier for old guys.. We're used to getting screamed and yelled at and we're used to soft food. We've also developed an appreciation for guns. We've been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.

They could lighten up on the obstacle course however. I've been in combat and never saw a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.

Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too... I've never seen anyone outrun a bullet.

An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He's still learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn't figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.

These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm's way.

Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons, who know that their best years are already behind them.

HEY!! How about recruiting Women over 50...in menopause!!! You think MEN have attitudes??
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my God!!! If nothing else, put them on border patrol. They'll have it secured the first night"

Smartest Smartass Answers of 2010

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 17:06:21 +0700

The last one is a worthy winner, but first the runners up.

6th Place

It was mealtime during a flight on a British Airways plane:

"Would you like dinner?" the flight attendant asked the man seated in the front row.

"What are my choices?" the man asked.

"Yes or no," she replied.

5th Place

A flight attendant was stationed at the departure gate to check tickets.

As a man approached, she extended her hand for the ticket and he opened his trench coat and flashed her.

Without blinking an eyelid she said,

"Sir, I need to see your ticket not your stub."

4th Place

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at a local supermarket but she couldnâ€™t find one big enough for her family.

She asked a passing assistant, "Do these turkeys get any bigger?"

The assistant replied, "I'm afraid not, they're dead."

3rd Place

The policeman got out of his car and approached the boy racer he stopped for speeding.

"I've been waiting for you all day," the cop said.

The kid replied, "Yes, well I got here as fast as I could."

When the policeman finally stopped laughing, he sent the kid on his way without a ticket.

2nd Place

A truck driver was driving along on a country road.

A sign came up that read 'Low Bridge Ahead.'

Before he realized it, the bridge was directly ahead and he got stuck under it. Cars are backed up for miles.

Finally, a police car comes up.

The policeman got out of his car and walked to the truck's cab

And said to the driver,

"Got stuck, eh?"

The truck driver said, "No, I was delivering this bridge and ran out of gas!"

First Place Smartass Answer of the Year 2010

A teacher at a polytechnic college reminded her pupils of tomorrow's final exam.

"Now listen to me, I won't tolerate any excuses for you not being here tomorrow.

I might consider a nuclear attack or a serious personal injury, illness, or a death in your immediate family, but that's it, no other excuses whatsoever!"

A smartass guy at the back of the room raised his hand and asked,

"What would happen if I came in tomorrow suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?"

The entire class was reduced to laughter and snickering.

When silence was restored, the teacher smiled knowingly at the student, shook her head and sweetly said,

"Well, I suppose you'd have to write with your other hand."

2010 in Google Searches

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:22:22 +0700

This year has indeed flown by quite fast for me. I really feel like this video sums it up quite well, even including Thailand's political mess ups, the Chilean miners and the ongoing Wikileaks scandals.

www.dearblankpleaseblank.com

Nathalie van den Berg — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:11:05 +0700

Dear one red sock,
Not cool man.
Sincerely, all the white laundry.

Dear Ignorance,
You will never be me.
Sincerely, Bliss.

Dear lady sitting next to me on the train,
Raising your voice will not improve your cell phone reception.
Sincerely, annoyed commuter.

Dear Microwave Popcorn,
Please pop all the kernels in the bag.
Sincerely, if I wanted half a bag, I'd share.

Dear Other Continents,
Please stop using me as an example when referring to starving children. There are hungry kids EVERYWHERE.
Sincerely, Africa.

Dear cockroaches,
Yes, you can survive a nuclear holocaust, but can you survive being hit by a shoe?
Sincerely, a human.

Dear Tooth Fairy,
Thank you for teaching me that it's okay to sell my body for money.
Sincerely, little girls around the world.

Dear McDonalds customers,
Please don't look at me like I'm below you. You're the ones eating this crap.
Sincerely, McDonalds employee.

Dear person snoring in the library,
Enjoy the mustache.
Sincerely, trying to study.

Dear Answering Machine,
I think we all know what to do after the beep.
Sincerely, Everyone.

Dear Boys,
Gotcha!
Sincerely, Push-Up Bras.

English Lesson 1

Darryl Crist — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:42:45 +0700

English Lesson 1
Learning English with a correct Thai accent.

Phrases:
1. â€œà¸„à¸¸à¸Šà¸·à¹ˆà¸à¸à¸°à¹„à¸£â€ = â€œWat ish yaw name?â€
2. â€œà¸„à¸¸à¸à¸²à¸¢à¸¸à¹€à¸—à¹ˆà¸²à¹„à¸«à¸£à¹ˆâ€ = â€œHow Oh Ah you?â€
3. â€œà¸„à¸¸à¸¡à¸²à¸ˆà¸²à¸à¸—à¸µà¹ˆà¹„à¸«à¸™â€ = â€œWaa you com fawm?â€
4. â€œà¸‰à¸±à¸™à¸£à¸±à¸à¹€à¸˜à¸â€ = â€œI lup youâ€
5. â€œà¹„à¸›à¸—à¸µà¹ˆà¹„à¸«à¸™â€ = â€œWaa you go?â€
6. â€œà¸‚à¸à¸à¸ à¸±à¸¢â€ = â€œAccuse meâ€
7. â€œà¸‚à¸à¹‚à¸—à¸©â€ = â€œSaw-leeâ€
8. â€œà¸£à¸²à¸„à¸²à¸–à¸¹à¸à¸¡à¸²à¸â€ = â€œWelly sheepâ€
9. â€œà¹€à¸—à¹ˆà¸²à¹„à¸«à¸£à¹ˆâ€ = â€œHow maash?â€
10. â€œà¸‚à¸à¸šà¸„à¸¸à¸¡à¸²à¸â€ = â€œTank you welly maashâ€

Numbers:
1. â€œà¸™à¸¶à¸‡â€ = â€œWanâ€
2. â€œà¸ªà¸à¸‡â€ = â€œTwoâ€
3. â€œà¸ªà¸²à¸¡â€ = â€œTeeâ€
4. â€œà¸ªà¸µà¹ˆâ€ = â€œFawâ€
5. â€œà¸«à¹‰à¸²â€ = â€œFaiâ€
6. â€œà¸«à¸â€ = â€œSikâ€
7. â€œà¹€à¸ˆà¹‡â€ = â€œSewenâ€
8. â€œà¹à¸›â€ = â€œAdeâ€
9. â€œà¹€à¸à¹‰à¸²â€ = â€œNaiâ€
10. â€œà¸ªà¸´à¸šâ€ = â€œTenâ€

Good Job! Now you can speak English (to your classmates).

Stuff you should be watching

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 15:31:28 +0700

Maybe you donâ€™t turn your TV on at the right times or youâ€™re sitting at your computer with your cursor blinking in the search field of your favorite torrent finder. If you arenâ€™t sure whatâ€™s good, Iâ€™m going to give you my suggestions. Iâ€™m not claiming these are the best, because I donâ€™t have time to give every TV show a fair chance, but hereâ€™s what I like and why. I try to keep the descriptions short so as not to spoil anything major.

Sons of Anarchy

Currently on Season 3
The Sons of Anarchy are a motorbike gang in California dealing mostly in guns from Ireland. It features a pretty good list of actors including Katey Sagal, Tommy Flanagan and Ron Perlman. The storyline revolves mostly around Jax and his struggles with his (step-) parents, newborn son, and the moral directions of the club itself.

I would call Sons of Anarchy an Action-Drama. I enjoy it because itâ€™s cool. I know â€œcoolâ€ is a very ambiguous word, but in fact the whole motorbike gang thing is â€œcoolâ€. The story is very well written, keeping you always wanting for the next episode.

Chuck

Currently on Season 4
Chuck is a tech-support guy at a Buy More who accidentally got the entire computer database of the CIA and NSA implanted into his brain. This makes him a very valuable asset to both agencies and both appoint agents to protect him and take him out to see if the intelligence stored in his head â€œflashesâ€ on things during missions.

The thing I really enjoy while watching Chuck is how the characters have a very good dynamic together. Chuck, his sister and her boyfriend, his co-workers and friends, and the agents really are a fun bunch and I like seeing how they handle their situations. Itâ€™s got a fair distribution of comedy and action and a bit of romance every now and then.

Big Bang Theory

Currently on Season 4
The Big Bang Theory is a sitcom of a small group of high-IQ scientist guys slightly lacking in social skills (potential understatement) and one pretty blond who moved in across the hall. It becomes very obvious that a certain level of genius can easily be mistaken as retarded in different fashions.

The reason I watch this show is for laughs. Even though it involves geniuses who occasionally discuss quantum mechanics and theoretical physics, you donâ€™t need to really think too much- just let yourself be entertained like when you watched Friends or something.

The Event

Currently on Season 1
The Event is a mystery story involving conspiracies, assassination attempts, kidnappings and an alien race with mystical powers, half of which live in captivity by the government and the other half living secretly among the humans. As you progress through the episodes more mysteries are brought to your attention while the current mysteries are being addressed to some extent. Itâ€™s a safe bet that fans of Lost will like The Event.

I like The Event because I liked Lost. Strange story arcs and weird turns in the plot are what keeps me hooked.

Futurama

Currently on Season 6
Futurama is a animated comedy series set in the year 3,000. Those familiar with the Simpsons will recognize a similar style and dynamic put in a completely different setting with very different characters. The main characters are employed by a mad scientist as an interplanetary delivery crew including a one-eyed mutant (Katey Sagal!), a lobster-type alien, a robot fueled by alcoholic beverages, and Fry who is originally from our time but was cryogenically frozen for 1,000 years by accident.

I like Futurama for the same reasons I like the Simpsons, but more because of the hilarious surprises that the creators spring on you as a result of it being the year 3,000 and all. You know, aliens and parallel universes and whatnot.

What do you enjoy watching? Please share your recommendations in the comments below.

Update: Check out Some more things to watch for some more recommendations.

The Beer Experience Photobooth Collation

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 13:40:50 +0700

Horeca Supply hosted Chiang Mai's first import beer tasting event with beers from Germany and Belgium and English ciders. We had a Mac set up running Photobooth and anyone was welcome to play around with it a bit. Here's a very quick rundown of the pictures taken during 5 and 6 November. If you want to see each picture at your own pace visit Horeca's Facebook page here: Horeca on Facebook

The Beer Experience will be an annual event- so if you missed this one, I recommend subscribing to Horeca's Facebook page and/or [twitter.com] to stay up to date.

The 10 Principles of Life

Nathalie van den Berg — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:28:38 +0700

1. If you're choking on an ice cube, simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat. Presto! The blockage will instantly remove itself.
2. Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold the vegetables while you chop.
3. Avoid arguments about the toilet seat - use the sink.
4. For high blood pressure sufferers - simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure on your veins. Remember to use a timer.
5. A mouse trap placed on top of your alarm clock will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
6. If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives. Then you'll be afraid to cough.
7. You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and duct tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
8. Remember, everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
9. If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem.
10. Some people are like slinkies - not really good for anything, but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

Speaking While Drunk

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:44:13 +0700

Things that are difficult to say when drunk:

1. Innovative
2. Preliminary
3. Proliferation
4. Cinnamon

Things that are very difficult to say when drunk:

1. Specificity
2. Anti-constitutionalistically
3. Passive-aggressive disorder
4. Transubstantiate

Things that are downright impossible to say when drunk:

1. No thanks, I'm married.
2. Nope, no more booze for me!
3. Sorry, but you're not really my type.
4. No thanks, I'm not hungry.
5. I'm not interested in fighting you.
6. Thank you, but I won't make any attempt to dance. I have no coordination and I'd hate to look like a fool!
7. I must be going home now as I have to work in the morning.

Must-have for Youtube, Autobuffer Script

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:53:17 +0700

I just want to briefly share something that I believe is a must-have for anyone who occasionally watches videos on Youtube. This trick will allow you to open up a bunch of videos and not have to worry about them all starting at once. The videos will all pause at the beginning but still load up so that they are all ready for watching whenever you're ready.

Greasemonkey

You'll need the Firefox addon Greasemonkey [addons.mozilla.org]. Greasemonkey doesn't do anything on its own, but it allows you to install scripts that will change or fix websites that you visit.

AutoBuffer

Next, get the Youtube AutoBuffer script [userscripts.org], click to install it. From now on, whenever you open up a Youtube video, it will start loading but not play.

This script also removes the ads from the video. There are also tons of other scripts for Youtube. Here's a page [www.gtricks.com] with some other scripts you may be interested in.

If you've got some of your own Youtube hacks or tricks, please share them in the comments below.

Getting Started with Disc Images and Clone Drives

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:06:05 +0700

This is a quick guide for backing up and reading your DVD collection by cloning your DVDs. Don't get confused with "Ripping" your movies or concerts, that will be in a different tutorial. We will "clone" the DVDs to make disk image files which can later be mounted to fool your computer into thinking you've just put in a DVD.

What you'll need

I'll be explaining this for Windows machines, so if you are using a different operating system, you'll have to find equivalent software. So, Windows users, we'll only need 2 pieces of free software. For creating disc images I recommend ImgBurn [www.imgburn.com] and for mounting those images I recommend Virtual CloneDrive [www.slysoft.com]. Once you've downloaded both and installed them we're ready to get started. (During installation, don't forget to un-check all the extra stuff like toolbars, etc)

* Both of these programs can be used for plenty of other purposes. ImgBurn is an excellent choice for copying CDs or DVDs and Virtual CloneDrive can be used to mount any disc image which saves you the trouble of having to burn discs just to get one tiny file off it.

Cloning Your Discs

To tell you the truth I don't know if "cloning" is the official word, but I like to use it to differentiate from "ripping" and "copying". Insert your DVD and start up ImgBurn (or a similar alternative). Now choose "Create Image File from Disc" and pick a location to save the file. This will take a few minutes and you'll be left with a file ending in .iso. Just repeat this process for other DVDs you want to back up and whenever you're ready we can move to the next step.

Mounting the Disc Image

Now Windows usually looks at ISO files and wants to burn them to real disks, but here's where Virtual CloneDrive comes in. If you've already got it installed then just browse to the ISO files and right-click on one. From the menu options, pick VCD's mount option. You may not see anything happen right away, but if you check out "My Computer" you'll see that you have one more DVD than you thought you had room for in your PC. It's like I mentioned earlier, your computer thinks that you put a DVD in and will treat it accordingly- meaning you can use it accordingly!

Now you just use your favorite media player and enjoy your movies or concerts exactly the way you would while they were on DVD- subtitles, language options, scene selections and all.

If you've got other little tricks or tips, please share them in the comments below. Questions are also welcome for anyone to ask or answer.

Text to Movie - A Blonde, Donkey, Yankees and Bats

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:18:49 +0700

Xtranormal is a web-based tool for creating videos. What sets this service apart is that you simply type the lines for your characters and it will use text-to-speech technology, take it one step further, and make movies.

[www.xtranormal.com] If you can type, you can make movies!

Naturally you get a bunch of crap when you are testing it out with no purpose, but I had a decent idea: look up some jokes and just paste them in for the Mark Twain-looking-guy to read. It's like a pathetic stand up comedian routine. Check out the results below.

Stuff I found layout around the web

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:49:01 +0700

I started a mini-blog on blogspot a few days ago. A mini-blog consists of bigger posts than Twitter which is like a micro-blog, but stuff I generally don't consider Rambling-worthy (not good enough for this site). I intend to just do little posts that take only a few minutes that offer no real insight or profound thoughts. I'll just post a picture I found somewhere (hence the title) and a little caption for it.

Check it out: ralphvandenberg.blogspot.com

On "Stuff I found laying around the web" I will not put in much effort to create original content or properly link or reference any sources. I'm seriously just going to post stuff that I found laying around the web. This easy low-bar model allows me to post much more frequently, so if you want you can browse on over there and perhaps find multiple new posts every day.

So that's the end of this announcement. Have a look if you feel so inclined and any comments or suggestions are welcome below in the comment section.

Striving for Carbon Neutrality

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:31:08 +0700

Here's an innovative way to minimize your carbon footprint. Plant a little garden in the back of your truck. It might not completely offset the emissions while you're driving but parking for extended periods of time might bring the scales closer to a balance.

Would you classify this as a "Fail" or do you think these people are on to something? Share your opinions in the comments below.

Cloud-based Backup on Android

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:59:39 +0700

One of the many new features that people running the latest version of Android on smart-phones can enjoy is Google's cloud based backup. Many sites list this feature as "untested" because they might be afraid of shortcomings. I've had the opportunity to experience the backup and restore personally, so here is my review.
* The way I managed to test this was by starting out on a T-Mobile build Nexus One manually updated to Froyo (FRF50) and then swapping out to an AT&T device and waiting for the official Froyo release (FRF85B) a few weeks later. The time in between I was back on Eclair (Android 2.1) which royally sucked. I did create an alternate gmail account to avoid risks of overwriting my previous backup.

Basically

I am extremely happy with the results. There are no details of what will be backed up and what it won't, so I set my hopes low. Yesterday I did tweet that it remembered EVERYTHING- this however, is an overstatement.

It remembered:

One of the biggest hassles to repeat would be re-downloading all the apps I had accumulated over the time I've had the phone. Google remembered all of them and instantly started downloading them after I logged in with my Google account. Score!

It also remembered the list of Wifi networks I had connected to in the past and the passwords, so no problems there.

It remembered the bookmarks I had stored for the browser.

Surprisingly, upon logging in I got my old wallpaper image back too.

Naturally it perfectly stored my contacts, Picasa albums, calendar items and emails because that was all part of Google's cloud anyway. The only thing that was lost here are the defaults for phone or email.

However, it didn't remember:

The part I was kind of hoping for after initially seeing such good results is that it would remember the settings for everything too, but no. Starting each app was like starting it for the first time. I had to re-log into each service that required it after accepting the terms of service. Bummer.

Besides the background image, it didn't restore anything from the home screens. No icon or widget placements or anything. Not so much of a big deal.

Lots of the basic phone settings seems to have gone as well. Alarm clock times, date and time settings, ring-tones, keyboard settings and such all had to be re-calibrated. This was quite a hassle too, because I didn't particularly remember what I had before.

Conclusion:

If you have no choice it's a real life saver, but I would NOT recommend it if you do have a choice. Don't just reset your user data so you friend can borrow your phone for a day thinking you can just restore everything when you get it back.

If you have any experiences, concerns or questions, hit up the comment section below!

Getting Started with Dropbox

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:07:37 +0700

Dropbox is a free utility which you can use to synchronize files and more with other computers and the cloud. Even if you don't have a second computer that you need to sync your stuff with, you can use it to share documents and photos with friends or coworkers.

Sign up & Download Dropbox

Dropbox is a free download and you'll receive 2 Gigabytes of free space on their servers. You can pay to get more, or you can use their referral system. For example, I recommend you download it from my link here because then we'll BOTH get an extra 256 MB of storage space! You can keep referring more of your friends or colleages and for each person who signs up and installs Dropbox you get 256 MB for up to 32 people. Means you can get an extra 8 GB of space which brings your total free space up to 10 GB. This is plenty of space for all your work related documents and a ton of pictures.

Installing

You need to download and install Dropbox onto each of your computers that you want to synchronize files between. It will make a folder on your computer aptly called "My Dropbox". All files you toss into this folder will then be available on all your computers where you have Dropbox installed and through the dropbox website. It's all done over secure connections and you have your own username and password to keep it safe. You can also share things using Dropbox by making them public or copying weblinks that you can then send to others to download.

Some tips and tricks

There are many things you can do besides simply synchronizing and sharing files. Some people use the public folder to place an HTML file, basically allowing you to host a website for free. You also create a special folder inside Dropbox where you can remotely dump torrent files. Then you can set your favorite torrent client (uTorrent, see how to get started here) to monitor and automatically start downloading from that folder.

There are also ways to synchronize folders and files outside of Dropbox's scope. Actually they're "cloned", and do actually reside in the Dropbox folder. Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a built in functionality mklink, but it's probably for the best if the experts explain [wiki.dropbox.com].

One last thing I want to mention is that Dropbox can be used for large files also and it won't re-upload the whole file with every little change. Instead it will only upload the part that's altered- saving you a ton of bandwidth. Another great feature is that it will keep some previous versions of files, so you can undo accidental changes.

All in all, Dropbox is a great utility highly favored by Lifehacker users [lifehacker.com]. I recommend it- so sign up and download it! [www.dropbox.com]

Dropbox for Mobile

I nearly forgot to mention that Dropbox also has apps available for many mobile devices such as the iPhone/iPod/iPad and Android; and it's coming to Blackberry devices soon! You can have access anywhere, anytime to all your important files.

Sharing with your Friends

Dropbox is also a great tool to share files with your friends, even if they don't use Dropbox. You would do this in cases where the file might be too large for emailing. Just dump the file in the public folder in Dropbox (or a folder within there) and then just right-click the file, hover over the 'Dropbox' menu and choose Copy public link. At this point you don't see anything happen, but open up your email editor and in the body of your email right-click and paste and you'll see a link. When the recipient of your email opens this link they can download the file you put in your Dropbox.

Arson and Terrorism in Bangkok

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:39:11 +0700

On May 19, 2010 the army moved in to put an end to the red shirt protests. Some leaders were arrested, but not before they ordered their followers to burn the city to the ground.

(rough translation: "Burn it all, I take full responsibility!")

Many banks have been burned, stores looted and public property destroyed. Thank you Thaksin- I hope you die.

Further reading: BKK POST: Rioters set fire to 34 places

Getting Started with Torrents

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:26:25 +0700

This is an absolute beginnerâ€™s guide to getting started with bit torrent downloads and file sharing. Advanced users will likely not learn anything new here.
Disclaimer: downloading movies and music is in fact stealing so proceed at your own discretion. There are several things I will cover in this tutorial. First, setting up your bit torrent client. This is a little program that will do the actual downloading. Next I will explain where you can find the torrents and how you can spot the right ones.

Set up a bit torrent client

For Windows I recommend uTorrent [www.utorrent.com] and for Mac OSX you could go for something like Transmission [www.transmissionbt.com]. Browse to either one of those and download the latest version and install it onto your computer. Your bit torrent client will not do anything on its own; you have to add torrent files to get it to start working first.

Acquiring torrent files

Torrent files are like keys to tell your bit torrent client what to start downloading. You can get them anywhere from the Internet, but I recommend using the website BTJunkie [btjunkie.org]. On the home page youâ€™ll see recent and popular torrents. You can pick from here or you can search for something specific. Your friends could also email you torrent files, but be sure you trust them before you start the download. There is always the danger of downloading something that will mess up your computer.

Finding the right torrents

If youâ€™ve just done a search for a specific movie, youâ€™ll see many results, depending on how popular that movie is on the inter-webs. From the list of results we can start filtering out the good from the bad. Some key parts we look for when downloading a movie are:

Category is indeed video
The size of the file is around 700MB (typically, can be a lot more for higher qualities)
In the name, you want things like DVDRIP, NOT DVDSCR, R5, or CAM
Check if the year is the actual year of release, and the language is what youâ€™re looking for.
Positive comments, and lots of them indicated by little green icon with a high number in it.
Good amount of Seeds and Leeches. You donâ€™t have to worry about it too much unless itâ€™s as low as 2 or 0 for instance.

Now weâ€™ve identified the torrents in the list we are willing to inspect further and dismissed many others. The next step is to open the individual pages for each torrent. There we can read the comments and verify the file type inside the torrent. I like to open them in new tabs so itâ€™s easier to return if Iâ€™m not happy.

Once on the page, scroll down and have a read through the comments. As with most commenting on the Internet (looking at you, YouTube and Yahoo Answers) most comments are spammy and worthless, but you can get the general idea of the collective mind. Pick out a few cases of A/10 V/10. This is a common way of saying that the Audio and Video are both 10 out of 10. Remember, these comments are not for discussing personal taste in a specific movie or music, but for verifying that the file youâ€™ll end up getting from this download is what it claims to be.

The important last step is to scroll way down to the bottom of the page where it will list the file contents of the torrent. Some come with a bunch of help files and credits and others are only a single file. What weâ€™re doing here is simply verifying that it is indeed a video by checking the file type. With music you can do the same thing. You can check all the tracks in the album to see if the ones you are looking for are also included. Hereâ€™s a little helper:

For movies you want to check for a file ending with .avi
Music files are usually in .mp3 format, one for each track
Avoid .tar, .zip, .exe (can be malicious)

Once youâ€™re happy, scroll back to the top of the page and click DOWNLOAD TORRENT and make sure that it ends up in the bit torrent client you set up earlier. Now it should start downloading. Whenever you have some part of the files, it will also start uploading, because thatâ€™s how this file sharing concept works.

I hope this has been helpful in getting you started. If you have tips or tricks for filtering out the right torrents or you know of better websites and software, please share in the comments below.

For further reading, check out BitTorrent for Beginners on Howtogeek.

RalphvandenBerg.com Mobile Version

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:26:08 +0700

The current design may be nice in a fully fledged desktop browser (dependent on your opinion, of course) but it doesn't work so well on mobile devices with small screens. Now with my personal acquisition of one such mobile devices I've been moved to develop a mobile friendly version of RalphvandenBerg.com, or at least the Ramblings and comments part. Simply navigate your mobile browser to ralphvandenberg.com/mobile for a stripped down version optimized for smaller screens and fat finger touches.

You can have a look at with your browser but it will look bad because of the huge fonts. This is so you won't have to do (barely) any zooming on your mobile device. I've designed it with the Nexus One in mind so somebody please check it out with an iPod Touch or iPhone and let me know how it looks. Logged in users can also comment on the Ramblings as you would on the regular version of this site- so maybe just this once, append your comment with the device you're using if it's something other than your desktop computer.

So, that's the end of this announcement. Thanks for reading and I hope the mobile version of this site is as useful for you as it is for me.

Men or Mice (episode 1 of 1)

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:42:43 +0700

During the early years of high school a couple of classmates and I were assigned a project that involved filming, acting and video editing. Please note none of these went very well. The result is a bit of a mess, but for those of us involved it will be a big laugh seeing this again after all these years.

The gist of the video

It's supposed to be a game show with one simple rule. The survivor goes home with the money. There are 4 contestants with different backgrounds and they kill each other off with guns and other miscellaneous violence similar to what you'll find in today's action movies. I think they've taken our idea and made a Hollywood movie out of it; The Tournament. Don't bother- if you've seen Men or Mice then The Tournament is no good.

What went wrong

The biggest shortcoming is the fact that we lost all the original sound during transfer of the video so we had to dub in what we could at the last minute. Also, our acting, scripting, and camera work is not something to boast about. Only the bloody bathroom scene is pretty cool in my opinion.

Anyway, I just found this video and decided to share it for laughs only. Enjoy!

Credits (Alphabetically):
Ben, James, Jeriah, Mike, Ralph, Yves
I think it might have been 9th or 10th grade that we were in at the time.

The age of Vloggers

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:32:40 +0700

We all agree that our lives are shifting more and more to the online. You won't really notice anything until your internet connection gives out and shit you've got nothing! Half of us are presumed dead if we don't update our Facebook status at least 3 times per week. Our work and also our entertainment comes from the internet; this new age introduced the vloggers.

Vloggers are basically video-bloggers and it came about round the time of Youtube. As far as I can tell there are 2 varieties: some just rant about stuff going on in their lives and solely depend on their presentation personalities to make it interesting- because their lives sure as hell aren't. The second kind actually creates a kind of show like you would see on regular TV. I prefer the latter.

Vlogger personalities

So there are a couple of vloggers on Youtube who dominate the subscriber and view counts and have turned themselves into Youtube personalities. Two of the ranting sort are Shane Dawson [www.youtube.com] and Meekakitty [www.youtube.com]. I can't tell if Shane's gay or not, and I think most of Meekakitty's fanbase consists of 40 year old men. Her real name's Tessa and she has actually won $100,000 in some thing.

Two examples of the more interesting sort are Ray W. Johnson with Equals 3 [www.youtube.com] and MysteryGuitarMan [www.youtube.com]. Both of these actually have some production value and are worth watching for your 10 minutes of entertainment. Ray's show Equals 3 is simply reviewing current viral videos. It's done cleverly and he actually managers to "add" something to the videos which are usually already funny. MysteryGuitarMan is a musically talented Brazilian named Joe. His typical video is cleverly composed music by sticking together short one-note clips. It's just clever cutting, no real music talent necessary, but I'm sure he does have some.

So go and check them out. Most of these vloggers put out 2 or 3 shows a week. It's the new entertainment because the TV is dying if not dead already. Do you have your favorite vloggers? What about other Youtube channels you check out regularly? Share it in the comments below.

Political Situation in Thailand

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:41:24 +0700

Over the past year and a half Thailand has been in distress with rallies and protests by the "red shirt" group, followers of fugitive ex-prime minister Thaksin. Recently, more than half of Thaksin's funds have been ceased and the court has ruled against him. What's happening now is (hopefully) a last stand by the red shirts.

That summarizes the situation. I'm not trying to provide any deeper insight. Honestly, I don't even follow politics that much. I just want to illustrate a single point: the red shirts are only protesting and rallying because they are getting paid to do so. You'll see that these activists will only last while the remainder of Thaksin's finances do.

Here's video evidence of the payouts.

There's also a Facebook page dedicated to the matter: [tinyurl.com]

"Though the Red Shirts have succeeded in calling attention to their agenda, the major societal forces of Thailand appear stacked against them. This includes the monarchy, soldiers in top positions, courts, the ruling coalition, and most business groups."
- Paul Chambers (Thailand specialist at Heidelberg University in Germany)

Abstract Laser Wallpapers (and make your own)

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:57:18 +0700

Anyone can be an artist if they have access to the right tools. That's a concept that Peter Blaskovic tried to demonstrate through his web app. What you'll find is a very addictive drawing app that you can use to create stunning abstract flame fractals in a matter of minutes. It's not difficult to get started. Just wave your mouse around to get the pointers jiggling about and click and hold to draw lines and waves of electricity. After a couple runs you can play with the sliders at the bottom to add different touches to your artwork. When you're done, hit "save" and you'll be presented with a 1680x1050 pixel JPG of your work ready to be loaded as your new wallpaper.

The ones you see below are some of the ones I've made. Click on one for the full size. Also, be sure and try making some on your own!

[www.escapemotions.com]

If you click "like" here, you are a cool person!

How I quit smoking

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:24:50 +0700

It's been a little over a year now since I've given up the habit. Some friends still smoke and often Iâ€™m questioned about how I did it, especially by those who couldn't imagine me without a cigarette in my hand. It all boils down to a few simple mindsets and decisions.

Quit for the right reasons

The first thing is you have to have the right reasons for quitting. You can't just do it after X amount of years because those health warnings finally affected you. "Smoking kills" and other one-liners they print on the boxes these days are to prevent new kids from picking up the habit, not helping you quit. You need a real motivation coming from something solid if you want to be able to see it through. For me it was my girlfriend- she doesn't smoke, and it's a real treat for her kissing an ashtray if you know what I mean. It's actually deeper than that, but you get the point.

Get all the support you can

The best would be if you could get someone who's always having a cigarette with you to also quit with you. This is not always possible, but you can get everyone's support by letting everybody know that you quit smoking. Most likely many of the people around you, family and friends, will try to help you get through and will be more understanding when you start getting a bit irritated. More importantly, everyone will be keeping you accountable now.

Be realistic

You have to be realistic about the goal you are setting. Make it something you can achieve. If you say you will never smoke again then you are continuously in the process and only accomplish that goal when you die; albeit older and not due to lung cancer. Instead you could put your goal at something like 1 year. At the end of that year, you can re-new your goal while you celebrate an accomplishment.

Don't become an ass

I enjoy the smell of burning tobacco. I'm not going to try and fool myself into disliking it. I also made it a point not to become an asshole to my friends who kept smoking. It's their decision and they'll have to come up with their own time and reason when they want to quit. You remember how annoying it always was when someone starting coughing just to try to make a point about your smoking? You remember all those times you held up a group somewhere while you finished your cigarette? You now have the advantage over never-smokers by understanding and being patient for that extra minute while the smoker has his or her last two drags.

Take advantage of the environment

Where I live, you can't smoke in bars, clubs, restaurants or pretty much any public indoor area. This only makes it easier for the non-smoker because you won't be hindered by any of these regulations. Now you can casually avoid all the circumstances where you'd usually light one up so you won't constantly be tempted. This and steeply rising prices of cigarettes will only help you in your quest to kick the habit.

This sums up the main points of how I stopped smoking. If you are trying to quit or have quit, please share your means and methods that helped you in the comments below.

Windows 7 Black Shark Wallpaper

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:50:29 +0700

My previous Windows 7 Shark wallpaper has been quite a success story here on RalphvandenBerg.com and so I decided to create a follow up version. This new version still has the shark, but you could say it's turned from day to night. Actually as of now I'm nearing the end of the Beta testing period. At the end of the month I will be forced to do a fresh install of windows. This "black" version of my shark wallpaper could once again have a slight metaphorical significance.

I've done two sizes of this wallpaper to accommodate for different monitor sizes. As always, I'm open for comments, suggestions and requests. Enjoy!

If you click "like" here, you are a cool person!

HDR - creating overly realistic photo effects

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:02:56 +0700

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range and it's a photo effect traditionally accomplished by taking multiple photographs at different camera settings and processing them into a single picture. The resulting image has a feel to it that makes it more realistic or surrealistic. The brights are brighter, the darks are darker and the level of detail is noticeably high.

Actually trying to achieve this effect in the traditional manner can be difficult and time consuming. Luckily for us, there's a way to take a shortcut to fake the HDR effect. You only need a single photograph is JPEG and Photoshop. Check out the before and after pictures below for a preview of what you can do.

(click on a picture for the larger version)

As you can see, it's one way to add "something" to the picture. Let's get started. Open up your JPEG in photoshop.

Set up- you probably need to unlock your layer. Right-click on your layer and choose layer from background. Now change the image Â» mode to Lab color, the effects we are trying to perform only work in lab color mode because of the highlights/shadows that we will manipulate. To keep from destroying our image, right-click it and convert to smart object.
Adjustments- now under image Â» adjustments you'll see only one option: Shadows/Highlights, pick it and make sure you are viewing with "more options". Now here you actually just have to play around with the sliders, but what I usually start off doing is Shadows- amount to 100%, Highlights- amount to 100%, Adjustments- color correction to 0, and Adjustments- Midtone contrast to +100. At this point your image probably looks like crap, show slide some of the other sliders around and try to get close to something you like. It's OK if you don't get it perfectly right the first time, because you can always come back to this step.
Curves- yes this step also requires some fiddling, but I can give you some nice guidelines. The first curve is the "lightness" curve. You barely need to adjust this into a bit more of a 'S' shape. Just make some slight adjustments and see what looks good. Next, we edit curves 'a' and 'b'. Do the following to both of them: Grab the lower left end of the line and drag it one grid space to the right. Now grab the top right end of the line and drag it one grid to the left. Basically you've just increased the slope twofold. After you've done this to both curves, you can take the center of the 'b' line and drag it a tiny bit to the left to add some yellow color, or warmth, to the picture. Once again, don't worry too much about what you're doing, because you can come back to this step later.
High pass- finally to get the high detail effect, we run a filter Â» other Â» High pass. Adjust the slider a bit. The preview shows you how well defined your edges and details will be. Apply this filter and then go to the blending options and set it to Linear light. Voila, this is your image. Like I said before, you can go back and forth between steps 2, 3, and 4 until you get the desired effect.

So I hope this was a helpful little tutorial. If you want to see a spastic video tutorial, the one I first used, then check out the link below. If you have questions or other tips, please let us know in the comments below.

[www.str8photography.com]

A Little Bit of Real Life

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:49:33 +0700

So I'm finally going to go see Avatar in 3D. I'm amazed it's still in theaters. It's been like one and a half months or something. This is not what this post is about. I found this image somewhere in the internets and I believe it's one of the most true depictions of real life as it happens daily. I don't remember where I found it so sorry if I can't credit the illustrator. I just really want to share this with you.

This has happened to the best of us...

Where was this post?

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:44:11 +0700

It's been a while since any activity here. To tell the truth I'm just not finding the time to post anything. Even now, I'm just writing this for the sake of writing something... anything... So what I'm going to do now is just write about a couple of random things.

Badda-boom Christmas

Christmas rocked. Great family time; got to see my grandmother who I haven't seen in years. Had a kickass motorbike ride with my brother.

Kind of addicted to Lost

I never got into Prisonbreak and I laugh when I hear they still haven't been able to escape after so many seasons. Aaaand Lost is practically the same thing... but I've been able to pick out a Sunday or two and now I've just started season 3. I'm not watching it on TV, I go for the DVD box sets... I'm gonna need to get a hold of season 4 real soon.

Rar rar oo lala

yeah, right?

Happy New Year!

Almost forgot to say it! Happy new year everyone! I'm a month late but I've managed to avoid the rush this way. I've got no resolutions to speak of this year. I figure the fact that I still don't smoke good enough for a while. I do need to start thinking about some exercise in my life...

Avatar made a ton of money

I didn't think it was that popular. I mean- out of all the people I know not that many have seen it... or they're lying to me... or I'm just pathetic and don't know the right people or I only know 2 people... Anyway, it got a big enough hype because of the amazing 3D, so it feels a bit pointless now that it's not in the theaters anymore.

Or what about this iPad? That got anticipated so much it would've been the best joke if Steve-o Jobb-o's "one more thing" was an iPod Squeeze or something... Nevermind...

I kind of want an iPhone. I want to borrow one for a month. I know all that swoopie pinchie multitouch will get boring quite quick. It's the only way to get over it.

Closing messages

Go watch Zombieland.

Follow me on twitter: @ralphvandenberg

I want to make lists of stuff- and I would like massive people submitted stuff. DO IT!

Also, check out [www.whiteninjacomics.com] and [theoatmeal.com]

Ok, for now- have a good one!

Rock 'n Roll and Itchy Nose

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:18:12 +0700

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the next generation of Rock 'n Roll brought to you by Jason Mraz. Not only are we a little uncertain about the pronunciation of his last name we also don't know his age or where he's from. Evidently he doesn't speak English- or he just hasn't bothered with the lyrics, but awesome dedication and love for the music is unhindered by occasional itching of the nose which only the trained eye could perceive.

Please enjoy the video and if you have more information about further works by this artist please be so kind and share them in the comments. The comment area below is also a prime location to voice your awe and admiration.

Crap, the Future

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:34:49 +0700

I'm in the web business so I pretend to understand Google Wave, Twitter and the whole web two point Oh! concept. I'm surrounded with people who are barely getting the hang of email and the future of the internet is a little too much to cope for them. It seems understanding "the point" of Twitter is quite a challenge. Hell, even I didn't see the reason to hop onto that train until recently.

So, what's Twitter then?

Twitter is like Facebook's status updates with pretty much nothing else. Hearing that turns a lot of people off it right there and then, but keeping it limited like that (even the character limit) has good uses. Here at RalphvandenBerg.com for example, I sometimes go for a couple of days or even weeks in between a post, because I can't think of anything "post-worthy". With twitter it's a lot easier because you're only doing a one or two-liner. Now you can easily do 5 to 10 posts per day without overwhelming anybody or putting too much time into writing on your part.

What I've just described above is using Twitter as a micro-blogging service. Another use which I'll advocate often is using it as an updating tool for your own website. Twitter is so flexible you can easily import feeds onto web-pages as news updates or specials or whatever you like. Makes your website a little more 2.0!

Two point "oh!"

Web 2.0 is one of the vaguest things in web designer circles. It was and still might be the future of the way you interact with web pages, as opposed to simply witnessing web pages. In my opinion, web 2.0 is best summarized into a little loading GIF that you see around. Try posting a comment on this article- incredibly 2.0 dude!

No actually it's much more than that. Basically it revolves around the web or internet or pages and sites being evolved and created by everybody, not only web designers. I'm going to stop trying to explain it- the more I try, the less convincing I sound.

Then Google's Wave?

This morning I read (in Twitter) that a guy downloaded Google Wave and didn't really think it was that special and switched back to Firefox. He didn't try Google Wave, he tried Google Chrome: Google's web browser. Google's doing a lot of stuff (Chrome, Chrome OS, Wave, Earth, Maps, Android, Search etc.) and if you're getting confused you're normal.

The Wave is in preview mode and currently it's invitation only. There's nothing to download, it's all web based. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I'd call it a OneNote page that's online that you and your friends can edit live like in chat or something. Google's trying to revolutionize email and changing the concept to a centralized message that's edited by all "recipients" instead of copies of the email being sent to everyone and basically going drastically out of sync. Like email and chat, it's absolutely boring if you're the only one using it- which will stay that way for a long time. Email is comfortable and it works because everyone is using it. If you wanted to get Google Wave to work, everybody would need to make the switch.

It's interesting to see what the future holds, and you'll never know which innovations kick off and which ones are lost in the webs of sites. How do you cope with new technologies? Hate 'em or love 'em? Please comment below.

National Geographic Wallpapers 2009

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:27:06 +0700

National Geographic held an international photography contest to create some stunning looking wallpapers for your computer. Some of these wallpapers may remind you of what I've published earlier about Windows 7 wallpapers but most of these are beautiful to behold in their own way. Check out the National Geographic website for proper captioning and accreditation of each photo.

[ngm.nationalgeographic.com]

Click on each image to open it in full size.

New kind of Tetris

Nathalie van den Berg — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0700

[newgrounds.com]

This game is completely addictive. It reminds me of human tetris that is done in Japan (you can look it up on YouTube if you like). If you dare, go to that website and try it out :P

** Later on the same day, Ralph added this link: **
[stickpage.com] this site has the game and 2 flash cartoons on the subject.

Google Maps Navigator

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0700

It was only a matter of time when Google would inch it's way into that market. They already had Google Maps in which you could plan a route, and now it's coming to your android phone. Now I know why that Garmin GPS store has disappeared from the map.

Check the video for a preview of what's possible.

Note the wonderful union between satellite images, street view, and straight up maps. The best point in my opinion is the fact that P.O.I. (points of interest) are pulled from the cloud, as are the maps themselves. This removes the need for "map updates" which are not free forever. Google Maps Navigator is free.

Excel Acting Unusually Slow?

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0700

If you use Microsoft Excel (2003) you might have run into a situation where Excel runs extremely slow for no apparent reason. It's happened to me at the office (I help out with tech support) twice now, and the first time it took me way too long to find a sufficient answer through Google. Quick solution: check your printer.

This sounds ridiculous, and I'm sure Microsoft has addressed this problem in later versions of office, but if you found this page, it's probably happening to you. Some of the symptoms or areas in which Excel slows down drastically is simple cell formatting or row / column insertion. Actions that would usually take less than a second take minutes and it becomes really frustrating when you search Google and the answers are all misleading. I've found things ranging from cells apparently empty being laden with data to broken relations. None of this was applicable. It happened even when you opened a new file, and the same files opened on another PC had no problems at all. This is reason enough to assume that the problem was with the computer and not the files.

The culprit is your (default) printer, or in this case, lack thereof. It seems excel is really obsessed with keeping track of your printer, and if it can't find it then you get disastrous performance. Check to see if your default printer is on and connected. If it's a printer connected to a different computer on a network, check if that computer's on and properly sharing the printer. If all else fails, change your default printer to something not dependent on external hardware, like a PDF document maker.

Now try some simple cell formatting or insert a new column. If the problem is fixed, you're welcome. Otherwise, I'm sorry- keep Googling.

How much do you read?

Kendall Meade — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0700

How much do you read, and where do you read most of it? Are you like me, do you mostly read online? Are you a bookworm, and read through piles of books at the library? Do you regularly keep a book next to the bed and read under the covers with a flash light?

Do you tell people you don't read and then read when they aren't looking? Do you read embarrassing things that you'd rather not have people know you're interested in? Would you be embarrassed if you were caught reading this?

What do you like to read? Do you mostly read novels and fiction, or books about science and industry? Do you read the most popular poop-culture novellas and fashion advice? What about magazines, do you read things like "87 ways to fry bacon using only 17th century medical techniques" or "how to lose 3 boyfriends at once and not feel bad about it"? Are you fascinated by articles about strange and obscure topics like how to treat an iguana for red scale mites, or how to spray-paint pine cones green so they look like a Christmas wreath? Have you ever actually spray-painted pine cones?

What about online stuff, do you read blogs, emails, twitters, IM's, PM's, RSS feeds, chat logs, chat messages, forum posts, blog blurbs, blog comments, comment comments, comment comment comments... is your head hurting yet? Have you realized how much you read?

TL/DR:

Too Long/Didn't Read.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Nathalie van den Berg — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0700

I could find him in every scene! It's a cool concept =]

MK Staff dancing

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0700

The MK chain of restaurants is immensely popular in Thailand and usually they don't even do much cooking for you. The general idea is simple. The customers get a water cooker on the table and order a bunch of fresh ingredients. Then you just dump in what you like and -voila- you've made your own soup! Other restaurants have tried similar setups, but MK has a few extra tricks up its sleeve.

The ingredients that you serve to you are subject to some of the strictest quality controls in the country, so you can be quite sure you're eating healthy, chemical free food, but the real surprise comes 2 or 3 times per day when the staff changes shift.

That's right, they're dancing to the MK theme song. Thailand is cool.

Apple Snow Leopard Wallpapers

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Apple is on the brink of releasing Snow Leopard and in the spirit of "a good operating system is only as good as it's wallpapers" they have bundled in these stunning images. Together with a couple of classic artworks we recognize from our middle school art class, Apple's thrown in the usual breathtaking landscapes and even some graffiti.

Now more than ever, Apple has a real competitor in the wallpaper segment with Windows 7's stunning sets. Find them here and here. Also don't forget our own in-house alternative default wallpaper.

Click on any of the following images for the full sized view.

And we thought we could dance

Nathalie van den Berg — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Ballet, break-dancing, jazz, etc... we thought we could dance... until this...

Check this out

A few handy Firefox tips

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Most of you have probably already downloaded the latest version of Firefox. We're on 3.5 now. Firefox has become the favorite browser of many, mainly due to the ability to customize through extensions. There are a couple of ways to improve your browsing experience that are a lot simpler- some little tiny tricks that will really make a difference at the end of the day.

The power of the middle mouse button.

You know you can use your middle mouse button or mouse wheel to scroll up and down on a web page, but did you know you can use it to quickly open links in new background tabs? Just click the mouse wheel on a link, and it will appear in a new tab without taking focus away from your current page. This is very handy when you have a list of links you want to view or a gallery of thumbnails that you want to see in full mode.

You can also use your middle mouse button to close tabs. You don't need to aim for the little 'x' as you would normally- just middle-click anywhere on a tab to close it.

Another handy middle mouse button trick I use often, is middle-clicking on the 'home' icon. I have my home page set with a lot of quick access links (see: myHome), so by middle-clicking on the 'home' icon, I can quickly access all those links in a new tab.

The power of the navigation bar.

The navigation bar has been dubbed "the awesome bar" for exactly the reason what the name means. You can start typing and you'll be presented with matches from your history and favorites. It's very quick, and if you tackle it smartly, it will save you a lot of time.

Whether you want to go to a page in your history or a favorite bookmark, you just need 2 key words that are unique to that page- the URL or the title. You can even add 'tags' to bookmarked items to make this easier. One way I use this a lot is with my local websites. Before I launch any websites, I have them running on localhost. If I wanted to get to ralphvandenberg.com on localhost I can simply type 'ralph local' and Firefox correctly figures out what I want. If I wanted to go deeper that wouldn't be a problem either. I'd type 'ralph local fish' and probably end up with the rambling "how to drown a fish".

Speaking of bookmarking; to bookmark a page you are currently viewing just click that little star in the right corner of the navigation bar. It will be under unsorted bookmarks, which you can organize later by going to bookmarks - organize bookmarks.

The power of the keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts are not reserved only for tech-savvy users. Sometimes your hands are on the keyboard and it's a waste of precious resources to move one hand off to the mouse to perform a task, and then move it back. Try to get used to these shortcuts if you want to work faster:
CTRL + T - opens a new tab (T for Tab)
CTRL + L - focus on the address bar (L for Location)
CTRL + K - focus on the search bar (I'll explain later why you don't need this one.)
CTRL + W - close current tab, close window with last tab
CTRL + F - find on the current page
CTRL + TAB - switch to next tab
CTRL + SHIFT + TAB - switch to previous tab

Now I said you don't really need that search box up there, it's because the awesome bar is so awesome. In the search box, click on the little down arrow next to your search engine's logo, and choose "Manage Search Engines". Here you can set keywords for your search engines. I set the letter 'g' to google search. Now all I need to do is type in the address bar 'g tips for firefox' and it will search google for 'tips for firefox'. In the same way I can type 'wiki metallica' to get wikipedia's Metallica page.

The power of deleting.

I actually have a lot more tips and tricks up my sleeve, but I would like to end with this final one and leave the rest for a later post. If you're getting pretty smooth with the awesome bar, you might occasionally run into suggestions that you don't ever want to see. Just use your down arrow on your keyboard to move your selection to it and hit delete. It's that simple. If you do this to a bookmarked item, you'll remove the bookmark, so be a little careful.

Another place this is useful is when you've once shared your computer, and your friend's email address in now part of that list of accounts when you want to log into facebook or something. It's not like his password is saved in there, but it used to be only your email address which meant that you could just hit 'log in' without having to select from a drop down list. Just like before, you can use your keyboard arrow to move the focus to the entry you want to get rid of and press delete. There's no confirmation, so don't rush this too much.

Okay, that's about enough for today. I hope these tricks will increase your productivity and just make your online experience a tiny bit better. If you know some other cool tricks or shortcuts, please post them in the comments.

Alcohol causes Swine Flu

Ralph van den Berg — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0700

[The Permanent Secretary for Public Health, Dr Prat Boonyawongvirot] said people can protect themselves from being infected by maintaining good health, getting enough rest and avoiding alcoholic drinks.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's booze that's the cause of the swine flu pandemic. The H1N1 virus is dominating the news stories similar to the way the bird flu did not long ago. It's only today that Israel makes a couple of the headlines because their either going to bomb Iran or demilitarize Palestine. I'm still curious about this though, is it a pandemic yet? From what I hear the WHO (world health organization) can't make up their mind. It seems they haven't established officially what a pandemic really is.

There is quite a big hype about the "number of reported cases". It's like a contest going on between all the countries seeing who can get the most cases. Imagine them bragging about getting the first cases, but being disqualified in that particular round because they were Mexicans. To really get points it has to be people from your own country who have not been to Mexico recently. The rules aren't clear yet on what kind of bonus you get from actual deaths, but the jury is bound to come up with something.

Regular people on the other hand, will not get swine flu, like we didn't get bird flu. I don't even know anybody who knows someone who got swine or bird flu. It seems so unreal. No worries though, just stay off drink and we'll be fine. *cough cough* *sneeze*

One Leg, One Machinegun

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0700

It was maybe half a year ago that someone was telling me about this crazy zombie movie with some cyborgs or something in it. There was this girl who had parts of her body manufactured into weapons. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I remember it sounded pretty weird and actually kind of lame too. Until I actually saw that movie...

I watched Grindhouse: Death Proof a few days ago. It's a bit weird at times, but it nearly passes off as a regular movie with a bunch of b-movie effects thrown in. The next day I put on the second half of the Grindhouse package. Some movie called Planet Terror. I had no idea what to expect. Bruce Willis is in it a bit... Maybe one or two less famous people... It's a bunch of gore and puss-popping zombies...

Then suddenly this guy pops a machine gun into his girlfriend's stump where her leg used to be. If you haven't seen the movie, then you have to see the pictures.

Then you have to see the movie.

Click on each thumbnail for a larger version.

Old Games Not Dead

Ralph van den Berg — Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 +0700

I'm still working away on a laptop I got almost 2 years ago, and even then it was an average machine with average performance. Today I know I shouldn't even bother with the latest computer games. If I turn down the graphics to the minimal settings it's still a coin toss over whether or not the stuttering will hinder my game play. I know there are a bunch of older games out there which will work fine on my system, but old games aren't any good!

Wrong. There are a lot of old games that are still good or even better than most games out today. Try this: go to a website that does game reviews and just flip through the results until you get to the year 2003 or something. Now just find the games with really high ratings and you're off to a really good start. I would actually read the review to make sure it would be something I would enjoy playing. For example, Tiger Woods' golf games back then might've scored high, but they're no fun for me.

The next step would be to hop in the bus to your local videogame shop and legally purchase some of the games you've narrowed it down to. A plus is that older games are usually way cheaper than the new ones. You could even hunt them down on ebay or something similar if the games you've chosen are a bit hard to find.

Me, living in a country where it's hard to find legitimate software, hopped on over to the nearest bit torrent site. After a little bit of patience you'll have a few good games, and perhaps a worm/virus or two, but that's just a fair trade-off. The point I'm trying to make is you shouldn't get frustrated over not being able to play the latest games. If you reading this are one of the few people who can play the latest games today, then smile while you can, because tomorrow you're in the same boat as the rest of us.

Some titles I enjoyed:

- No One Lives Forever 2
- Rise of Nations
- Mafia
- Starcraft + Broodwars
- Medal of Honor
- Call of Duty (the first one)
- Sid Meier's Pirates!

On request I might be able to dig up the torrent tracker files for each of those...

Chernobyl War Zone

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 +0700

You probably know a couple of guys who play Counterstrike obsessively. They won't bring real guns to school, but you might occasionally catch them with BB guns on the paintball grounds. It's all good and friendly. Their mom's grounded them from using the computer for the rest of the day, so they decided to go outside for a change.

There is another game called Stalker (with dots in between each letter, like each letter actually stands for something, but don't ask me what), and it's set in / around Chernobyl. I've tried playing it- you WILL spend a lot of time walking around wondering where the hell you're supposed to go. Occasionally you will run into skinless dogs or other radiation-mutation enemies, and then you just hope your weapon doesn't jam, because it's a crappy AK you picked up off the corpse you found under the bridge.

Either way, the game really does bring an atmosphere.

Now these guys take Cosplay (costume play) to the next level. Pretending is an understatement. Please, somebody, point out some fake bits!!

See the rest of their adventures at [I don't know the post name because it's in Russian - site:Webpark?].

Hidden Windows 7 Wallpapers

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Windows 7 comes with a bunch of hidden wallpapers which can be activated by the distributors of the computers on which Windows 7 will be installed. In current versions of the pre-releases, you'll need to perform a little registry hack to unlock the themes, or simply get the ones you like from here.

The extra backgrounds come in themes from 5 countries. It's likely we'll see more countries featured in later versions. (Like where the hell is any Asian country?)

Click on a thumbnail to get the full sized version.

Australia Set:

Canada Set:

United Kingdom Set:

America Set:

South Africa Set:

Don't miss out on the special edition win-shark wallpaper and the
standard set of Windows 7 wallpapers.

If you are already running Windows 7, you can find these wallpapers in C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT.

Check out Apple's Snow Leopard Wallpapers too!

Red-Shirt Protesters

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Protesters in Thailand are annoying! During the Songkran festival and some time leading up to it Thaksin supporters blocked roads at various places around the country.

The following video shows me running into a roadblock halfway to Lampang, and having to return to Chiang Mai after already taking massive detours up until that point. It was at most annoying and a waste of petrol for me personally, but I can imagine others having big problems at this point.

As far as I know, the only violence happened in Bangkok when a few people got fed up with protesters burning buses or something. Yes, I did watch the news, but it was still Songkran- a 3-5 day nationwide water fight. Next video I'll show some of that.

7 Civilian Uses for Nukes

Jeric Goodsman — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0700

LINK: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/yourfriendatom.html

I don't know what scares me more, the fact that someone, somewhere is thinking this stuff up or the fact that some of the ideas may actually be used at some point!

As a geomatics tech., the proposed uses for construction would basically make my job redundant but it sure would be fun to trigger the bomb! Maybe there's a certification I can take for this? hmm ;).

Download Windows 7 Wallpapers

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0700

The latest releases of Windows 7 are bundled with more and more wallpapers that, contrary to XP style wallpapers, are quite artistic without the Microsoft Windows logo. In some cases you would actually be wondering what the designers were smoking.

If you are not in the mood for installing windows 7 for yourself, but still would like to enjoy the wallpapers in a different operating system, then you have come to the right place.

Click on a thumbnail to get the full sized version.

I'm not breaking any copyright laws with this, am I?

If you want to learn how to change the background of the log-in screen, head over to ficklegods.com.

For a home-made alternative to the classic Windows 7 wallpaper, check this out.

Access hidden Windows 7 Wallpapers here.

Check out Apple's Snow Leopard Wallpapers too!

If you click "like" here, you are a cool person!

Astronauts had a Sip of Peepee

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0700

"The seven-member shuttle crew will be delivering the final parts needed for an expanded solar energy power system. It also will deliver a replacement for a failed unit in a system that converts urine to drinkable water, NASA said."

This is the last paragraph from the news report of the shuttle mission Discovery. The mission was first delayed for a week or so, but just yesterday has successfully docked with the international space station. Just for fun, re-read that last sentence up there.

The space station had a system that turns their piss into drinkable water. That alone sounds pretty sick, but it's a space station in orbit where water is scarce, so we can forgive them. I just hate to be the astronaut who first discovered that this converter had failed. You can picture him spitting the piss out into the zero-gravity cabin; droplets floating towards the other astronauts who try desperately with swimming motions to get out of the way.

Remember the space shuttle was also delayed for a week. And the piss-to-water converter was probably broken long before that; it's not like they can send up a space shuttle in 2 weeks notice...

I used to want to be an astronaut when I was little. I kind of changed my mind now.

Get Firefox 3.1 beta 3 now

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's my honor to introduce to you the latest beta release of our favorite web browser: Mozilla's Firefox. For those of you who have already been using beta 2 will find that it's incredibly easy to make the switch, as almost all add-ons will work. I must admit that I did have to restart firefox a few times in safe mode to disable some of my non-working add-ons, but that was only because of the good part, which is that all the stuff from beta 2 will carry over without hassle.

All the stuff I'm talking about is cookies, saved passwords, bookmarks and the works. Even my about:config tweaks are the way I've set them before. It's been about 12 minutes that I'm using this build of Firefox, and already I'm quite impressed. There are definite improvements noticeable from the fixed to Tracemonkey, and I highly recommend you to make the switch.

After this beta, Firefox will change their 3.1 numbering to 3.5, so the next beta (4) will hold those numbers. They're doing that because they feel they're changing so much, the number increment needs to reflect that.

You can download the third beta at mozilla.com.

Alternative Win7 Wallpaper

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Windows Seven comes with a set of wallpapers with this fish blowing bubbles as the default. I thought I'd make my own version of that wallpaper, with a bit more balls (not literally).

If you want to, think of the shark as the millions of ways Windows has been and will be pirated. Ah, poetic...

Click on the image above to get the full size (not cropped) version for your desktop background.

Check this out

BLACK version of the windows 7 shark wallpaper

Find the original Windows 7 wallpapers here.

Access hidden Windows 7 Wallpapers here.

Monkey Business

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0700

I couldn't help noticing these two stories right after one another having something in common... This is from a CNN news feed:

Paper apologizes for, defends chimp cartoon
A day after publishing a cartoon that drew fire from critics who said it evoked historically racist images, the New York Post apologized in a statement on its Web site -- even as it defended its action and blasted some detractors. Many of those critical of the cartoon said it appeared to compare President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee in a commentary on his recently approved economic stimulus package.

http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/437gdAqGq0g/index.html

Chimp attack victim moved to Cleveland Clinic
A Connecticut woman attacked Monday by her friend's pet chimpanzee was taken Thursday from a Connecticut hospital to the famed Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, a hospital spokeswoman said. She would not divulge the victim's condition nor the reason for the move.

http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/-jR53ga5GEk/index.html

It's just that they appeared right after each other in my news feed that made me wonder what the president is doing biting people in cartoons?!?

Lady Bites Monkey Back

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0700

The headlines on my newsfeeds are getting clogged with the story of a lady being bitten by her friend's monkey. I haven't actually bothered reading the story, but the according to semi-reliable sources, she was actually "groping" the monkey, after he politely asked her not to. After 4 hours of this, the monkey had enough and bit her arm off.

It's a fairly uneven report on these accounts, because nobody's mentioned anything about the lady biting the monkey back.

Stay tuned...

Facebook Owns You

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0700

How many of you ever read the terms of service? We sign up for so many things nowadays that it's too much trouble to sift through the hundreds of pages before clicking the "I Accept" checkbox to continue our subscription to online services or install downloaded software.

How does this sound:

"You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service..."

In other words, Facebook owns your account and everything in it, which for some people is an entire life.

And this is something Facebook just snuck in there since February 4th. Those of us who were members since before that day don't really get the option to "disagree now where I've agreed before", do we?

On-The-Road Cooking

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0700

The other day I saw a family driving down the highway with a microwave plugged into the cigarette lighter popping popcorn in their car. No, actually I just read about that, and my imagination kicked in a bit too hard. I have, however, on frequent occasions seen motorbikes with their sidecars completely turned into cooking stations fully capable of frying or steaming whatever they happen to come upon on the road. They come equipped with gas tanks and sometimes hotplates for the roti, this is Thailand, don't look at me funny.

For those of us who'd rather not go through any mechanical difficulties, but still would really enjoy a hearty meal every now and again while on the road, don't panic! Practically every car comes with a built in hotplate! Technically it's not called the hotplate, you may know it by different names, such as 'engine', but them's minor details. The point is, cooking food on your engine while youï¿½re driving is not a crazy idea at all, and after some practice, your passengers will be asking "is it done yet?" instead of "are we there yet?"

To get started, you need to find a good snug spot on your engine that gets hot enough, keeps the food in place, yet not interfering with any moving parts. You can do tests with balls of tin foils pinned on the engine under the hood. Strap some rockets to your car and ramp the Grand Canyon at the widest point, and examine the state of the tin foils afterward. If it has moved about, consider bigger food chunks and vice versa. You can check if the part of the engine you picked is hot enough by dropping some drops of water on it after a good drag race. If the water sizzles and boils, it's hot enough.

Next, you need to be sure to get the right kinds of food to cook under the hood. Keep in mind that no matter how good of a driver you are, the engine always shakes about, so soup's not a good idea. Anything that splatters oily stuff is also not good, because you might set your car on fire. Let's just stick with chicken and potatoes wrapped in tin foil. Now just start driving; in particular models of cars you might even be able to enjoy the aromas de cuisine de la voiture!

There are no actual numbers anyone can give you about how long, or for what distance you must keep your food on the running engine, because there are too many variables involved. Different cars run at different temperatures, driving styles matter, and traffic and weather conditions also have a great influence. The best advice I can give you is a simple trial and error, kind of how it is with regular cooking, in my case anyhow.

Oishi Coffee on the Go!

Michael Robert Meister — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Dear Readers,
Oishi coffee on the go in the mornings is spectacular! Especially if you have a good pork dim sum to eat with it as well on your way to work down here in Krabi Thailand. Anyway just thought I would write to you all again in the ramblings since I have not been for a while now as well. Also the Starbucks Coffee down here is usually pretty tasty as well. Not to mention visiting the beach everyonce in a while too.

My Windows 7 Experience

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0700

It seems I may be extremely late in sharing my windows 7 experience, as there have already been 800 reviews posted all over the web. Then I remembered that some people don't follow the same news feeds as others, and there is a tiny possibility that this is the first time you've ever heard of windows 7. If that's the case, let me enlighten you: windows 7 is the newest version of windows, still in "beta". It will be the successful successor to Vista, which, in case you were living on a deserted island, is the unsuccessful successor to XP.

I am currently typing this in word 2007 (with ribbon and all), in an officially licensed copy of windows 7. Yesterday, I replaced my old hard disk with one 4 times the size and did the same with my RAM. I spent most of the evening loading XP on the first partition, and today had a go at loading windows 7 onto the third partition (the second partition is for Ubuntu, fourth partition is for documents, songs, videos, etc). I'm enjoying the quickness and snappy responses from a fresh install, and I must say I'm quite impressed with windows 7.

Neat little features you'll notice on the surface are that it's all about the looks, and smoothness. The "Aero" look, with fuzzy transparency along with amazing transitions will blow your mind. Another part I'm really going to enjoy is the snap-to-left or right side of the window for half-window maximizing. Great for when you want to share your screen real estate among two windows in 2 simple mouse gestures. Another fun mouse feature is the "Aero Shake"- a shaking motion you perform on the title bar of one window to minimize all the other windows. Shake again to restore the other windows. In other words it's like a "show desktop but leave this window open function".

I have not experienced any problems yet, but I've only been using it for a few hours now. For reference, my windows experience rating comes out at 3.0. This number means absolutely nothing to me; I'm the guy who's always stayed away from vista like a cat avoiding water. This score here apparently is my lowest score which was my graphics capabilities. The rest I scored 4's and 5's.

If you have an extra 20 GB on a hard disk somewhere, you might consider installing windows 7, and dual booting from whatever operating system you currently use. Granted, there is a lot of hype, but it's nothing like it was with vista.

Ok, I'm off to take a swing at Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, although Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 wasn't that bad. Let's hear from your experiences during beta testing in the comments.

Two Zero-Zero Niner

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0700

Firstly, I'd like to wish everybody a delayed merry Christmas and a happy new year. I'm not sure when we stop calling it new, but 1 week still feels new. Around this time also roughly marks the birthday of this website. It's now 1 year old. Gosh, they grow up so fast when you're not looking!

It seems this year was quite eventful. Moving, working, burning clubs, and just when we thought it was enough, Gaza gets kicked in the nuts. You know Microsoft officially admits that Vista was a flop, and hopefully they'll recover with Seven.

In other news; I've finally quit smoking. I didn't wait until the end of the year, like most people, I actually quit around the 7th of December, beating most of you by about 3 weeks. Don't argue. I still get a bit moody sometimes.

I actually have nothing to write, just wanted to wish everyone the best. Keep kicking, and smile for the cameras! Piece!

Ralph

Good Coffee in Krabi Thailand!

Michael Robert Meister — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Dear Readers,
I am now teaching at a Thai local school in Krabi Thailand. The coffee though down here is fairly tasty. I also like some of the their pastieries as well too. Anyway hope the next time you the reader take a trip to the South part of Thailand that you try some local coffee shops and eateries that are at very afforable prices to as well.

Glitter Vampires

Ralph van den Berg — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0700

What is a vampire supposed to be? This is a question posed to many writers, movie makers, and even game designers. Bram Stoker has his stereotypical vampire, but many modern vampire characters have been created differently, some with more success than others. Naturally there are many factors that come into play, and in my opinion, the most important one is whether the vampire in question is a protagonist or antagonist.

Antagonistic vampires always need a weakness to exploit- they must be slayable. Typically this would be garlic, crucifixes, holy water, fire, stakes, and good old sunlight, but modern vampire depictions tend to stray away from this. Apart from the new 'Glitter Vampires' in the books and movie Twilight, and a special cross-breed in Underworld, most vampires still can't stand sunlight. This is handled in two definitive ways. Firstly, and most commonly, the vampires just hide in shadows to keep out of the sun's devastating rays. This makes me wonder why they just couldn't keep an umbrella with them during the day. Anne Rice's vampires (Interview with a Vampire, Vampire Lestat, Queen of the Damned, etc), on the other hand, go into a sort of coma during daylight hours. They have no control over it. Their sleeping bodies are still protected by a sort of killer-instinct; they sometimes wake up with a strangled human who happened to stumble upon their sleeping body- that human possibly still clutching a wooden stake and a vile of holy water.

In the computer game "Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines" there are a whole range of vampire species. As a player you can choose your own, depending on different strengths and weaknesses that certain clans posses. There even is an oriental breed of vampires, who themselves claim to be something completely different. The fangs and bloodlust they have in common, but the means of becoming one varies greatly.

The way to become a vampire is important to defining a vampire species. In many cases it's simply surviving a vampire's bite that will turn you into one, which is deceptively easy. You'll notice that this is often associated with vampires who are also killed easily; vampire over-population is something that has to be avoided by script writers. The second means by which a human may join the undead is that the vampire must nearly drain the human of his blood, and then feed the human vampire blood in return (as seen in Anne Rice's vampires and Vampire Masquerade). The latter provides a kind of security for the vampires, knowing that they'll not accidentally make hundreds more vampires.

Vampire secrecy is always very important. Vampires are significantly superior to people in strength, speed, and sometimes supernatural abilities. Nevertheless, they prefer to keep their identities secret because they are vulnerable during the day. In most cases, humans still outnumber vampires greatly, and vampires have managed to stay out of the way, picking off loners, and blending in with goths or upper-class society (what's the real difference anyway?).

Playing, reading, and watching vampire related media, I've started forming my own idea of vampires. I'm not saying they are real, but in my imagination, there has to be a uniform kind of way a vampire is made, feeds, lives, and is killed. I generally dislike movies where vampires are the bad guys, portraying them as weak and animalistic. Vampires have a certain vibe, something that makes them super-humans in a dark, mysterious kind of way. They treasure humanity- not only as food- but as something they once were, and envy. Plus, immortality is a pretty good part if you ask me.

What's your favorite kind of vampire? How do you see them? Would you be a vampire or a slayer?

Insane Presidential Candidate

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0700

If you are voting today, and you are not sure whether to vote for Obama or McCain, then why not vote for the most bat-shit insane candidate of the year: Lee L. Mercer Junior! Here are some un-edited quotes from his website (www.mercerforpresident2008.com).

From "About Lee L. Mercer Jr.":

"On August 22, 1992, The State of Texas installed an intelligence hotwire in me at the United States Army Military Intelligence Academy Camp Bullis San Antonio, Texas."

What?

"The United States Military Police and Federal Police are doing a biography and autobiography of me regulating the United States Government National and International affiliated with and undercover intelligence-Criminal investigation of the United States Government."

Huh?

"The United States Federal Congress has encouraged me to want to become President of the United States so that I can do what the President of the United States of America is supposed to do and complete the federal and military government biography and autobiography."

That sounds fair.

On the war in Iraq:

"There is some concern about the war in Iraq. I know of U.S. government evidence that the war in Iraq is illegal and it can be solved through me representing the United States Government with a peace treaty. I know there are notations in my ROTC Biography of a guarantee from Iraq through me for peace to the war in Iraq and that Mr. Hussein is innocent of his charges."

On religious enforcement:

"There is some concern about the U.S. Government Religions enforcements. I will enforce the U.S. Government Religions enforcement regulating its enforcements itself with its regulations pertaining to itself and according to its enforcements."

Some reasons this nut-job has for running for presidency:

"5. To prove The Klu Klux Klan and the Communist Party are gangsters and organize crime in Business and Commerce through Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) Business and Commerce Intelligence National and International."

"9. To prove that every person in the United States and world is hooked up on an Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) Electronic surveillance hot-wires approved by the United States Congress for the U.S. Government Electronic Surveillance of every citizen in America for government intelligence circumstances will equal to the United States Governmentï¿½s Technocracy."

"10. To prove the United States of America has two Governments and they are Government #1 and Government #2 and I own Government # 1 a Private Ownership named Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) a Government of all the Intelligence agencies in The United States of America and in All International Countries in the World a Nationalization in Business and Commerce Intelligence National and International."

"23. To Prove I have solved every crime in the world as it happens from zero to start to finish for every crime done in Business and Commerce Intelligence National and International."

"34. To Prove the government owes me Zillions of Dollars in money and is refraining to pay me and my business Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) Business and Commerce Intelligence National and International."

"49. To Prove the United States Government killed my sex life, my wife sex life, my daughter-in ï¿½laws sex life both may sons and other of my family members sex life with Espionage Experimentation and Espionage Exploitation sex killing."

"69. To Prove a gangster is a terrorist. President George W. Bush, Jr. and Former President George Herbert Bush, Sr. Told us they are the 911 Terrorist evidence of Electronic Satellite recording. Bush is the 911 Terrorist Evidence my ROTC FBI Electronic Surveillance Satellite Recording I wrote took letter to the FBI Houston I was sent by The United Army Criminal Investigations Fort Belvior after I called them and turned him in FBI Houston did not understand told me not to come back. I have solved every crime in America and the world for the last 15 years dating back to before Christ.
REMEMBER A GANGSTER IS A TERRORIST. THE BUSHS ARE GANGSTERS."

You have to go check out this website for yourself; youï¿½ll laugh your ass off!!

Payap Coffee

Michael Robert Meister — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Dear Readers,
Coffee at Payap University is really good stuff. Especially if one gets whiped cream added to ones beverage of fine and delicious and addictive coffee. Coffee outside of the Payap Univerisy campus also tastes delious as well too. Not only that but there are many ways to add different flovoured combinations to things in drinks nowadays too. From added whipped cream to all sorts of flovours like chocolate, rasberry, and even at some of the more traditional coffee shops here in the Kingdom of Thailand one may add cinamon or other add ons to ones cup of steaming brew as well. Anyway hope you too will enjoy a cup of coffee when you have a chance out of your busy days to settle down and enjoy the coffee as well as the coffee stores musical and or quiet atmosphere depending on which coffee shop you wish to indulge yourself in, as well as your senses too.

Problems with Poetry

Ralph van den Berg — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Some people really get into poetry. They love taking a poem and ripping it to shreds. They start making claims that in some way, or any way, the poem reflects the way the author is feeling or experiencing something in his or her life. This is fine if that is what the author intended, but is that always the case?

Take any poem, read it the way the words are written on the page, and leave it at that. Maybe, for once, you do not sit around in a classroom and discuss how the yellow leaves on the tree are actually a metaphor for the author's nicotine-stained mustache. Maybe the bush providing bright red cherries all year round is not a metaphor for how the author never lost her virginity. Maybe it's safe to assume that the author was actually writing about a real bush, or a real tree with yellow leaves.

Maybe you've already gotten the point I'm trying to make. Poetry was my least favorite subject in English class. It only got worse when the same flesh-off-the-bones ripping analyzing happened to non-poetic literature like regular books or short stories. Why couldn't we just appreciate the text for what it was? I don't care about the author's bipolar sexuality or his family problems caused by the fact that he wanted to be a writer instead of a professional assassin like his dad. In theory, if you had to read between the lines for the poem or story to be any good, then we're dealing with a shitty author here, in my humble opinion.

Why won't you try this the next time you come across a piece of literature. If someone's trying to force you to study the author's life in order for you to be able to appreciate the text, then tell them straight up that it's crap. Read the literature anyway, without too much background information, and see if it's any good. If it is good, then by all means, go ahead and dig into the author's personal life, and try to find connections and hidden meanings. Be warned, this usually leads to the piece of literature that you liked in the beginning sucking more and more.

Try reading this poem written by a black kid. You don't need to know anything else.

Complaining

Darryl Crist — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Complaining is a favored pastime of mine that is shared by at least 99.9% of the world's population. Yes, even you enjoy complaining even if you don't realize it.

Now when I say complaining, I am talking about the act, not necessarily the mental state of the complainer. I do not endorse being ungrateful, discouraged, depressed, discontent, or daft. I do, however, believe that complaining (aka griping) is a prerequisite for sanity, being heard complaining by another, that is, rather than just complaining to one's self. It is amazing, the emotional difference between complaining to yourself as opposed to complaining to a friend. Telling your complaints to a friend or family member will act as therapy (if they're listening), but wallowing in your own grievances will bring you down to further frustration and or depression. I believe that talking about your annoying misfortunes with a good listener is good for not only therapy, but also for problem solving. Thoughts are realized in new ways to people when they hear their words spoken out loud to another. They can sometimes find the answers to problems themselves simply by eavesdropping on their own conversation. At the same time as hearing yourself aloud, you can have the chance to get some advice from an outside perspective from the person listening.

You must understand that not everyone gives good advice. And not everybody wants to be given any advice at all. It is hard to know when the person you are listening to wants advice or is only there for the therapy of being heard and or hearing themselves speak. Yet I have to declare that it should be required that the whiner must listen to the listener's advice out of common reciprocal courtesy. Yet if the complainer refuses to hear it, the listener should not, in most cases, give it anyway.

I pity and loath people who try never to complain at all. I find them pretentious and sometimes oblivious or self-righteous and proud. Everyone has problems and misery loves company. You can quote me on that. To pretend or act like you never have anything to complain about and everything is just hunky-dory all the time, is an attempt to elevate yourself above others. If you practice this, stop now while you still have some friends left (if you still have friends left).

Venting your frustrations healthily with a good listener has been proven to be 259.7% more effective in problem solving than alcohol consumption, and it costs less (unless it's with a shrink). So do your part, listen, complain, and give and get advice.

Cofffee

Michael Robert Meister — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Dear Readers, I am writing on the rambling again. I have been to many gas stations that have great Oishi bottled caffinated coffee. I also still like other kinds of coffee such as coffee from Starbucks and other more corporate company made brands of coffee too. Well have to go now but wish me all luck on my next great find on a good rock solid cup of primitive joe.

Welcome, Kingdom of Sexdom

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

"There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible."
- P. J. O'Rourke

"Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand."
- Unknown

"I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty."
- George Burns

"Sex without love is a meaningless experience, but as meaningless experiences go, it's pretty damned good."
- Woody Allen

"As the French say, there are three sexes--men, women and clergymen."
- Rev. Sydney Smith

"Sex at age 90 is like trying to shoot pool with a rope."
- George Burns

"Sex is like air. It only becomes really important when you aren't getting any."
- Maharashi Fattifatbastard

"If it weren't for pickpockets, I'd have no sex life at all."
- Rodney Dangerfield

"Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation. The other eight are unimportant."
- Henry Miller

"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy."
- Steve Martin

"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision."
- Lynn Lavner

"Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."
- Woody Allen

"My cousin is an agoraphobic homosexual, which makes it kind of hard for him to come out of the closet."
- Bill Kelly

"It isn't premarital sex if you have no intention of getting married."
- Matt Barry

"You know that look women get when they want sex? Me neither."
- Drew Carey

"Life is a sexually transmitted disease."
- Unknown

"Remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast."
- Woody Allen

"What do I know about sex? I'm a married man."
- Tom Clancy

Ayn Rand

Kendall Meade — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

just saw this and it made me think:

"Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all others proceed.

and his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's conciousness, the refusal to think: not blindness, but the refusal to see: not ignorance, but the refusal to know."

Give Me Death

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

The fear of public speaking is more common than the fear of death. This means that people would rather be the one in the coffin than the one giving the eulogy. This is quite ridiculous, because I do believe that forcing someone at gunpoint to give a speech in front of hundreds of people will work on anybody. When it comes down to it, people do not want to die. Fear of death is something and not wanting to die is something else. It's more likely a case of people fearing the idea of public speaking more than the idea of death or dying.

If you are part of the minority that does not fear public speaking more than death, then you do have a great advantage. In theory you could charge a lot of money to do something that other people would rather die than doing.

Everybody gets a little nervous before having to give a presentation or a speech. I think this is more related to the fear of making a mistake and embarrassing yourself. If you step out of your point of view, and think about how the audience feels or what they expect of you, it might be a lot easier to overcome this fear. For instance, if you are a student and you are required to give your presentation for a big project, the audience for that presentation is likely to consist of teachers and professors. They know you, and they do not expect you to smooth-talk them into a new belief. Most times the expectations that you feel you should meet are unrealistic, and reevaluating this can help enormously.

Pretending that the audience is naked is not a good idea. This can only make you uncomfortable.

The best way, in my opinion, to help you speak at a good rate (not too fast) and avoid mistakes is to relax. You can persuade yourself that everything is going to be ok, and actually lower your anxiety by relaxing before and during your presentation or speech. If you manage to do this, it will make you appear more confident at the same time.

Taking a humble approach is also a good idea, especially if you will be talking about something that someone in the audience may know more about. It's not likely you are the esteemed expert on the subject you are discussing, and if you don't assume you know more than the audience, then you won't be caught by surprise when they throw you a curve ball comment or question that you can't answer. Don't try to lie about something; the audience appreciates honesty just as much as you do. Remember that telling the truth is easier because you don't have to keep track of everything you've said.

Lastly, facing your fears can give you a major rush or a high. If you've tried bungee jumping you'll know what I mean. You stand on a high platform with a cord around your ankles, and there is definitely fear about jumping. Those who tell you otherwise are lying. Right after you jump off, there is no turning back. The fear dissipates, and the rush or high takes over. It's a great feeling and, to some extent, can be experienced from bungee jumping and public speaking just the same.

Myth of Smokers Toothpaste

Ralph van den Berg — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

There are some questions that arise when we hear about Smokers Toothpaste. Main concerns are about the results. Does Smokers Toothpaste benefit the teeth of smokers more than it does for non-smokers? Is Smokers Toothpaste better than regular toothpaste? Should you use Smokers Toothpaste as well as regular toothpaste? There are indeed many questions, but the most important one is whether using Smokers Toothpaste is actually better than non-smoking alternatives or not.

Statements that are made by Smokers Toothpaste manufacturers (I will not mention brands) are that it removes stains and freshens the breath. Does it do this better than regular toothpaste? What about the other functions that people expect from their brushing experience, such as general bacterial eradication and plaque removal?

Now at some point, some of you may be thinking that smoking is bad for you, and that all smokers should quit. Very well, all smokers should quit. Then all the hard working people in the factories producing Smokers Toothpaste will go out of business, thus eliminating this crusade for an answer because Smokers Toothpaste will cease to exist. I will not give up that easy! There is still Coffee [-drinkers] Toothpaste! It's probably the exact same formula as Smokers Toothpaste (stain removal etc), but tackling a different market. Damn, now I think that smokers who also drink coffee should now use three different kinds of toothpaste (if Smokers Toothpaste differs from Coffee Toothpaste).

Would coffee-flavored toothpaste be any good?

So the facts are that Smokers Toothpaste (and probably Coffee Toothpaste) includes a kind of grinding substance which will grind your teeth clean of stains. Think of it like using sandpaper to get paint off of your walls. This doesn't sound very healthy, but according to the scientists and doctors who try to market the toothpaste to you (and get cuts of the profits) it's absolutely safe. Come to think of it, I heard that if you own a hamster or some other type of rat you have to put little blocks of wood in the cage for them to chew on, so that their teeth get ground down and don't grow through their skulls. Maybe it's the same for humans, but instead of blocks of wood, we get to use special toothpaste.

I'm actually not hoping for a good conclusion anymore. I was anticipating one when I started off, but that's all gone to hell. If anyone knows any better, please enlighten us in the comments below.

If you click "like" here, you are a cool person!

Knowing the Truth (or not)

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Truth seems to be an incredibly valuable thing, but it does contradict something that comforts us in our everyday life: the benefit of the doubt. If we knew the truth, there would be no doubts, thus no benefits of the afore-mentioned. A major way that knowing the truth would ruin our lives would be that all movies suck. Most movies depend on keeping the viewer in a state of suspense, so that he or she can be surprised later on. Without that element there is little to no entertainment left.

Take the movie Fight Club for instance. Would it have been nearly as good if we'd have known all along that Pitt was just the dude's other personality? How about Sixth Sense? Sure, we get our little scares now and then, but the whole twisted ending is pointless if we knew all along that Bruce was a ghost. By the way, people who say that they knew all along are lying. You should never trust anything they tell you ever again.

Knowing the truth can be a good thing, if the truth happened to be something that you like. Imagine that God really existed and promises you a superb afterlife. You then knowing this truth would make your world all pink and rosy, but what if you did believe in God and Jesus, but you came to find out that the truth was that there is nothing after you die. Seriously, you just cease to exist- no soul or spirit or nothing. That truth kind of sucks and doesn't give people a good reason to be nice people during their time on Earth, does it?

It comes down to a kind of knowing only a "selective" truth, leaving you with benefits of doubt about other things. Would that work? Knowing only good things would mean that everything you didn't know was bad. Wait- that means you know something bad (knowing that everything you don't know is bad), so selective knowledge doesn't work either. Ignorance IS bliss!

Now that I've got you thinking about what you wish you knew and what you wish you didn't (your parents favor your brother / sister, your girlfriend / boyfriend misses his / her ex, there is / isn't a God who does / doesn't love you, the meaning of life or lack thereof) I'll leave you with some quotes of truth by people who may or may not be famous.

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
- Abraham Lincoln

"Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true." [paraphrased]
- Buddha

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them."
- Galileo

"The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off."
- Gloria Steinem

"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand."
- Josh Billings

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
- George Orwell

You may also be interested in reading: Boy who Cried Wolf

IN THE BEGINNING

Kendall Meade — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0700

In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.

in the beginning was zero, and then there was one.

in the beginning, God made idiots. they were just for practice. then he made us, and we called his idiots "monkeys".

in the beginning, when God was nearly done making our world, he smoked up- and then set about doing the animals on Australia.

in the beginning, nobody was really there to see it happen. there was not one person around to take note of things like "wow, lights! ouch, physics! owOWOWou...ou... time..." coming into being.
this, however, does not prevent some people from pointing out that they have an invisible friend who *was* there, and not only that, but who was *responsible* for everything.
when you think about it, this is an excellent reason to reject atheism: because with atheism, you can only blame yourself. with theism, you can blame an invisible man in the clouds (or in a lake of fire, or holding a newspaper in an elephant trunk while seven hands deal with the toilet paper in a public restroom and the eighth hand deals with where the toilet paper goes) for every little detail that you don't particularly agree with.
there is a certain ammount of satisfaction with this that cannot be had any other way.

in the beginning, there were no swear words. somebody had to think them all up.
imagine them, if you will, trying to think of something particularly nasty. "Ouch!" would probably have been among the first of these things, probably along with "upset stomach!", "Headache!", and "defacation that is unpleasant!"
from these humble beginnings, more complex layers would have to be added: "that person is an ouch!" just didn't have the right ring to it. and so we see words like (in english) 'damn' come into being, which can translate back to roughly "I want you to have so much ouch that you die of ouch, and then I want you to ouch some more, forever and ever!". from this we can see that swearing has greatly enriched our grasp of language from the time it was developed, because words like "forever" had to be invented to fit in all the ouches.
from that point, somebody probably said "how can I ouch even after I'm dead?" and then it had to be explained about the how in the beginning, the invisible man did everything, and how he loves you, and how he will ouch you forever and ever after you're dead anyway if you don't do what he says.
this explains why missionaries should swear more often.

What is the most wanted thing?

Annie — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0700

I am a columnist of Chiangmai Tabloid so I am the opinion staving. For me, I think the most wanted thing for me is the truth ;) so If anyone want to keep your answers in secret, please put "(p)" for private & "(P)" for public at the end of your sentences.

Sorry about writing in English but it'll take me forever to type in Dutch..

Thank you in advance for every opinions.

I do wish you guys a lovely day.

Venes Doroles.

Cheating

Richard Mark Hefner — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0700

At my University, which shall remain nameless (PU), I have noticed a lot of cheating going on. Now while this is entirely up to the individuals involved, I think it lessons the quality of the degree I will get when I graduate.

When these people graduate, they will be idiots and not be able to do anything without someone else helping them. If they do get a job on their own, without family help, their employer will probably think they are complete morons and fire them because they are worthless. The employer will ask, "where did you go to school?". From now on, this employer will assume all people from this university will be slightly more intelligent than a rock and not hire anyone from there anymore.

From what I can see, there are no real repercussions from getting caught cheating because teachers don't do anything. In fact, some look and turn the other way to act like they don't see it. So, that makes the teachers partly to blame for the behavior of these students.

One student caught cheating when asked why they did it said, "it's ok, everyone is doing it."

My message to him is just because everyone is doing it does not make it right. Stop cheating!

The major problems in the world can probably be traced back to behavior such as this in it's rawest form.

Coffee on the Go!

Michael Robert Meister — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Dear Readers,
Since I have almost lived in Thailand for almost just shy of two decades, I have experienced the joys and the tradgedies of coffee on the go! When going on trips to other parts of Thailand I have enjoyed these tasty drinks which are: Nestle Coffee, Oishi Coffee, Milo Drinks, and not just coffee but these soft drinks as well: pepsi, coke, fanta, sprite, diffrent flavoured milks, and also different flavoured coffee drinks with much higher net sugar contents as well. Such as on the go: Starbucks here in Thailand where one still needs to walk into the drink restaurant to order a drink, these flavours including: Mocha, Java, Expresso, Latte, Diet Latte, and other flaours including: dark chocolate type mixed coffee drinks as well. Well thats all for now readers, hope you enjoyed this commentary as much or more so as I enjoyed typing this rather short coffee synopsis of coffee in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Land of Smiles and Teargas

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Thailand has managed to do it again. First there were the problems with sickness and disease, where the streets were littered with corpses of those struck by mad bird flue and SARS, followed by the military coop in 2006 which left countless buildings riddled with bullet holes and shell blasts. Now the revolution is happening, and the army has once again been released upon the people to put the violent masses back in their places or better yet, into their graves.

Thailand was once believed to be a peaceful land, with kind and generous people, but clearly the tides have turned, and it is no longer safe to walk the streets, even during broad daylight. Those who were ignorant enough to dare public locations without gasmasks have found themselves in overcrowded hospitals, fighting for air after inhaling near-fatal doses of home-made and military grade teargas which sprouts from shells aimed at anything more than an individual. It's a war zone with no apparent enemy, no uncensored communication to the outside world, and constant looking over your shoulder.

While this may seem very exciting to some of you, it's absolutely fictitious and extremely exaggerated. Let me point out the facts from above, so you can easily disregard the rest as fake. We had bird flue and SARS, roughly 1 person died of each. We had a military coup, but no shots were fired. People were decorating the tanks with flowers. There are a few protests in the south, and there was one case involving teargas. The military will probably get covered in flora again. The second paragraph is completely true, except for the bit after the second comma.

You know, I live in Thailand, and I have not seen one dead corpse from the avian influenza or the severe acute respiratory syndrome. I haven't seen a single protestor. Bare in mind that I'm in Chiang Mai, and no violence ever happens here (I may have hit my younger brother once or twice). The closest thing we've had to protestors is a guy with a megaphone in a van in a local market. He was just politely trying to insult the protestors. I guess he was protesting the protests.

Through some inside information, I've heard that many foreigners are canceling their trips to Thailand. Roughly 60 to 80% of hotel bookings have been cancelled all the way up to and probably past December. Do you know what this means? Hotel room prices are dropping like mortars (excuse the analogy), and if ever you wanted to spend a few nights in a 5 star hotel for the price of 3 star hotels, this is your opportunity. Thailand's economy greatly depends on tourism, apart from rice and shrimp exports, and many of the Thai people know this. Tourists are always treated really well, and if you feel like you're being ripped off on the price, just remember it's still 50 times cheaper than what you'd have paid in your own country.

It's almost a bit boring in Chiang Mai, without protestors and violence... How do you make teargas?

Farang = Foreigner

The man who can't be moved

Toh Phromchitmart — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Watch Video

Going back to the corner,
where I first saw you
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag,
I'm not gonna move
Got some words on cardboard
Got your picture in my hand
Saying if you see this girl can you tell her were I am
Some try to hand me money
They don't understand,
I'm not broke I'm just a broken hearted man
I no it makes no sense
What else can i do?
How can I move on
When I'm still in love with you?

Cause' if one day you wake up
and find that your missing me
and your heart starts to wonder
where on this earth I could be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here
to the place that we'd meet
Then you'd see me waiting for you
on the corner of the street,
So I'm not moving
I'm not moving

Policeman says Son you cant stay here
I say there's someone I'm waiting for if its a day, a month, a year,
Gotta stand my ground,
even if it rains or snows,
If she changes her mind,
this is the first place she will go

Cause' if one day you wake up
and find that your missing me
and your heart starts to wonder
where on this earth I could be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here
to the place that we'd meet
Then you'd see me waiting for you
on the corner of the street,
So I'm not moving
I'm not moving
I'm not moving
I'm not moving

People talk about the guy,
thats waiting in on a girl
Woah oh
There are no holes in his shoes,
But a big hole in his world
Ooh
Maybe I'll get famous for the man who can't be moved,
and maybe you wont mean to but you'll see me on the news,
and you'd come running to the corner,
Cause' you'll know its just for you
I'm the man who cant be moved
I'm the man who cant be moved

Cause' if one day you wake up,
and find that your missing me,
and your heart starts to wonder
where on this earth I could be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here
to the place that we'd meet
and you'd see me waiting for you
on the corner of the street
so I'm not moving
I'm not moving
I'm not moving
I'm not moving

Cause' if one day you wake up,
and find that your missing me,
and your heart starts to wonder
where on this earth I could be,
Thinking maybe you'd come back here
to the place that we'd meet
and you'd see me waiting for you
on the corner of the street

Going back to the corner were I first saw you,
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag and I'm not gonna move

I'm kind of in love with this song just in a second.This band is from Ireland and people assume them to be new U2.

The music video perform very perfect emotional,check out.

Babelling with the Fishes

Ralph van den Berg — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Following is an automated translation of the events happening in Thailand, from Dutch to English. I warn you, it may not be as clear as you'd hope for, but it's good to stay updated with current affairs.

In the Thai capital Bangkok the state apparatus has stopped thousands of demonstrators good almost. The office of the premier, ministries and the bldg. of the state television have been stormed and have been sealed off of the outside world. The demonstrators require this way resigning democratically chosen regering-Samak. Prime minister Samak is considered as a straw man of Thaksin Shinawatra, the steenrijke matter man and ex-premier of who two years were forced suffered by the army to go away. Prime minister Samak accuses the opposition of it Thailand to ruin with escalating demonstrations. Samak were chosen in December to prime minister. Its government stands already for a long time under busy. The premier has said Tuesday once again that he will not go away. Initiator of the protest action is the right Volksalliantie for democracy. That lawsuit, in spite of the name, for abolition of democracy. Alliance states that elections in Thailand have only conducted to corrupt and incompetent governments. The opposition movement wants a government who exists from soldiers and technocrats.

In the Thai capital Bangkok the bezetting lasts of some important government bldg. In spite of an injunction to give the bezetting up and a omsingeling by order troops, the demonstrators dertigduizend to estimate refuse leave. They took the bldg. Tuesday. The demonstrators say just leave if prime minister Samak Sundaravej goes away, but that is that not of plan. Samak are considered as a straw man of Thaksin Shinawatra, the steenrijke matter man and ex-premier of who two years were forced suffered by the army to go away.

Thousands of tourists have stranded in Thailand by protest action on three airports, among others which of the popular tourist island Phuket. Demonstrators have concluded the three fly fields entirely and threaten Thai block fly fields also other. The demonstrators require to resigning president Samak because he a speelbal would be of its predecessor Thaksin, who was turned off two years suffered. The protest action lasts already four days. Touched at demonstrations in Bangkok its Friday thirty people wounded. The police force used tear gas to scatter the demonstrators.

Translated by babelfish.yahoo.com

The Large Hadron Collider

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest Hadron Collider ever built. No, wait. That makes the name sound wrong. The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest thing ever built. They chose to just call it large because if it leaves this world intact, they might build a bigger one. I think they might as well have called it the Biggest Hadron Collider, because it takes 3 spots in the top 5 possibilities for the total destruction of humanity.

Briefly, the Large Hadron Collider is a big, circular tunnel under parts of Switzerland and France, and scientists plan to slam protons and ions head-on at insane speeds just to see what will happen. These collisions of tiny little particles don't sound very threatening, even at speeds of around a billion kilometers per hour, but they predict very big bangs. Yes, when I said "big bang", I meant the theory of the creation of the universe, and I didn't pluralize it by accident.

It doesn't just end there. Scientists also hope to find out more (anything) relating to dark matter and dark energy (a hypothetical energy that contributes to the expansion of the universe). This takes us down to a quantum level, where those annoying particles do weird stuff while we're not looking. So far, we haven't been able to observe dark matter very well, but maybe our friend the Large Hadron Collider will change things for us. There is a theory, however, that when dark energy is observed, it will collapse and create our very own black hole on Earth- sucking the whole universe in with it. Damn!

Some more great knowledge that the Large Hadron Collider might give us if it leaves us alive is evidence of the other 7 dimesions (making a total of 11), anti-gravity technology, and time travel (which will also very likely end the world and the universe as we know it). I don't know about you, but this Large Hadron Collider is starting to sound very sexy. Let me throw some numbers at you.

27: The circumference of the LHC in kilometers.
16.8: Same as above, for Americans (in miles).
99.99: Percent of Lightspeed that the particles will go boink.
1.9: Temperature in Kelvin. That's colder than in space.
10,860: Tons of liquid nitrogen and liquid helium needed to make it that cold.
6: Billions of dollars it cost to build.

Fortunately for us (humans and all other life on the planet and universe), the Large Hadron Collider had some magnet problems and they had to postpone all their experiments. They won't be able to take it online until 2008. Shit, that's now. The reason we're all still alive is most likely because they've only started testing the equipment at less than one fifth capacity. Full universal destruction is just around the corner. The guys at CERN are anticipating full power particle slams around 2009 or 2010.

If you're all still alive, not sucked into any micro-black hole, drop a line here every now and then. Let us know you're still alive and well.

Coffee in Thailand

Michael Robert Meister — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Dear Readers,
Coffee in Thailand is some of the best in the world! Knowing that there are many different types of coffee here in Thailand being from: mocha, lattes, and frappuchinos. These do indeed help to enhance our palletes in the global society for many people at large. Coffee can also be quite an addicitive drink for many, especially for me. Anyway coffee is usually the best during three to five in the afternoon because that is when my energy levels in my body start to deplete totally, so this in my perspective is the best time to enjoy a cup of rich and creamy coffee or just a plain cup of joe! Well that is all for now for this entry, and thanks for reading my rambling today!

Just a Gram of Inspiration

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

I realize that a gram might be a confusing concept for English or Americans. Think of it like 0.04 ounces. Furthermore, inspiration can come in very small sizes, but have great impact. Tiny pieces of inspiration are important for those of us in the web business. A dollar here, 20 cents there, it all adds up and keeps us going (in writing it looks really desperate).

Running a website can be a lot of fun (If you are a nerd like me), but it is nice to see it generating a little bit of money here and there. Somewhere in your head, I'm not sure if it's the back, the bottom, or right up front, but you do want to earn money and actually make profits. I think this is the case for many actions in life, we're always hoping for positive rewards (so we can buy fast cars and a big screen TV).

I may or may not be on top of money-making methods online, but there are a few things I would like to share with you. Keep in mind that due to my financial state, I'm only concerned with zero-investment plans at the moment, and when big profits happen (and after I have my home theatre installed), I will move on to projects that require initial financial investment. Basically I have made a small guide for those who would like to try to earn some money online. In some cases, the programs require you to have your own website with content, even if it's just a blog, and in other cases you can practically start from scratch.

Have a look at my Recommended Affiliate Programs to find out more about the possibilities there are for you. You'll find advertising networks, simple jobs, and more here, along with a short description of what they're all about. I'm active in these systems whenever I'm not at my real job, and mostly the combination of all of them together is what keeps me going. Check it out, some pay more than others, some are easier than others, while others might never earn you any money (because it just might not work for you, but that's OK, because you joined for free).

I would like to wish you the best of luck, and if you have any questions or suggestions, please comment below.

Recommended Affiliate Programs and other money making programs on the web

Song Titles that Failed

Ralph van den Berg — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Underneath your Nose (something about a mustache?)
I am a Sock. I am an Island (just not detached enough)
Piano Ban (no more playing that song!)
Apathy for the Devil (and the lyrics were different, too)
House of the Rising Nun (good morning!)
My, my, this American Guy (not special enough)
A Little Less Conservation (pollute the world while we can!)
What a Wonderful Whirl (I love merry-go-rounds)
Lazy in Love (dislikes being on top)
Stroke on the Water (so far away from a hospital)
Every Gay is Exactly the Same (as far as I'm concerned)
Dog is a DJ (peeing on the dance floor)
You're the Perspiration (and I'm the towel)
Mullet with Butterfly Wings (It looked good... then...)
I've got Goo Under my Skin (ew)
Jailhouse Lock (the very essence of it)
Love will Scare us Apart (a common fear of commitment)
MMMFlop (yep)
Born to be Mild (not so popular with the bikers)
Nights in White, Sitting (and waiting for something)
No Woman, No Spy (she's hot, so we have to trust her)
Gritty in Pink (stop rubbing it on me!)
Comfortably Dumb (aren't we always?)
Spiders on the Storm (but Marvel rejected it)
Scarborough Hair (but washing it helps)
Silver, Blue and Old (my classic cars collection)
Spirits in the Bacterial World (they're everywhere)
Take my Band (I quit)
Beers in Heaven (I hope they do!)
The First Slut is the Deepest (because of no frame of reference)
Tubhumping (in the shower)
Stalk like an Egyption (round and round the pyramids)
Where is the Glove? (I've got one already, the other one?)

Just in case you don't recognize any, the original song titles are: Underneath your clothes - I am a Rock, I am an Island - Piano Man - Sympathy for the Devil - House of the Rising Sun - My, my, this American Pie - A little less Conversation - What a Wonderful World - Crazy in Love - Smoke on the Water - Every Day is Exactly the Same - God is a DJ - You're the Inspiration - Bullet with Butterfly Wings - I've got you under my Skin - Jailhouse Rock - Love will Tear us Apart - MMMBop - Born to be Wild - Nights in White Satin - No Woman, No Cry - Pretty in Pink - Comfortably Numb - Riders on the Storm - Scarborough Fair - Silver, Blue and Gold - Spirits in a Material World - Take my Hand - Tears in Heaven - The First Cut is the Deepest - Tubthumping - Walk like an Egyptian - Where is the Love

Impossible to Please

Ralph van den Berg — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

A group of girls are traveling together through Europe to celebrate graduation. Somewhere in Eastern Europe they find a 5 story hotel with a sign outside saying "For Women Only". After a brief moment of thought, and decide to go in.

At the reception there is a very attractive man, who explains to the girls how the system here works. "You can move up each floor until you find what you like, but you're not allowed to move back down until tomorrow."

The girls get curious and start up the first floor where they see a sign that says "The men on this floor are short, and boring." The girls move to the next floor.

On the second floor they find a sign that says: "The men on this floor are short, but good looking." They decide this is still not good enough and keep moving up.

On the third floor they find a sign that says: "The men on this floor are tall, but boring". The girls figure that there are two floors left and it probably only gets better, so they keep moving.

On the fourth floor they find a sign that says: "The men on this floor are tall and good looking." The women get excited, because this is the perfect kind of man, but they remember that there's one more floor left, and they get curious.

When they get up to the fifth floor they find a sign that says: "There are no men on this floor. This floor was built to prove that it's impossible to please a woman."

Heaven and Hell

In Heaven:

The cooks are French,
The policemen are English,
The mechanics are German,
The lovers are Italian,
The bankers are Swiss.

In Hell:

The cooks are English,
The policemen are German,
The mechanics are French,
The lovers are Swiss,
The bankers are Italian.

In Computer Heaven:

The management is from Intel,
The design and construction is done by Apple,
The marketing is done by Microsoft,
IBM provides the support,
Gateway determines the pricing.

In Computer Hell:

The management is from Apple,
Microsoft does design and construction,
IBM handles the marketing,
The support is from Gateway,
Intel sets the price.

Special Relativity 101

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Science in my perspective only gets interesting when scientists start discovering and experimenting with things that even they have no clue about. This area of science can be labeled as crazyshitology or whathaveyoubeensmokingology. Some topics included here are time travel, multiple universes, and my personal favorite: quantum. We must first lay down a few foundations; recap what you know about the laws of physics, and then change everything around a bit.

We are all somewhat familiar with the dimensions. We look at space as three dimensions, and then time as the fourth. Now forget about that, and we'll just call it Spacetime, because one without the other is pointless, and time is actually not much of a constant in the universe. Welcome to the Spacetime Continuum. Some other fundamental properties of the universe are matter (just call that stuff), motion (stuff moving through Spacetime), mass (not important anymore), energy (potential and kinetic), and light (particles and/or waves). That's out of the way, bring on the Albert.

Now the most important part of Einstein's theory of relativity is the concept of reference frames. You can think of it like your point of view. If I were a pitcher, and you were the baseball I just threw, then from my point of view you are moving away from me at 120 km/h (I throw really fast), but in all fairness, from your point of view, I'm the one that's moving away at 120 km/h (and you are stationary). Also remember that there is no absolute frame of reference, because it's all relative. If you can get your head around this, then the rest is all quite easy.

They try to tell you that all the laws of physics hold true for all frames of reference, and that the speed of light is a constant for all frames of reference. The first bit makes sense, and the second bit is wrong. Scientists have already discovered ways to slow light down to a near halt, and they've also managed to speed it up past light speed (1,079,252,848.8 km/h; or roughly just over a billion km/h). It gets confusing, because it's common belief that light speed is like a barrier, where stuff moving on one side of it could never cross over to the other side (unless a brief moment of non-existence is permitted). Brief moments of non-existence are fine in my book, because it's only a brief moment to those outside of your reference frame. Inside it would either not happen, or be infinitely long.

Anyway, when we hear the name Albert Einstein, the first thing we think of is E=mc^2. This is not the formula for happiness (sorry, hippies); it's the formula for nuclear bombs. It's actually quite simple: E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light previously thought of as a constant. In lame man's terms the equation is stuff multiplied by the speed of light multiplied by the speed of light again is energy. This is how something with very little mass has the ability to release a phenomenal amount of energy; AKA nuclear fission and fusion.

Sorry, I just caught myself boring you. Let's skip ahead to time travel and the twin paradox. The twin paradox is funny, because it's taking all the excitement out of time travel and focusing on one twin becoming older or younger than the other. The twin paradox in short goes like this: One brother stays on earth and the other takes a spaceship and hauls ass out to space (really hauling ass, as in close to light speed). The space brother gets bored, turns around and comes home only to find that he is now younger than his brother. That's because time actually slows down when you go really fast (you also shrink, by the way), but you wouldn't notice in your own frame of reference. The used-to-be twins try again, and this time they take watches with them, and send signals back to each other, and they experience the Relativistic Doppler Effect (similar to the regular Doppler Effect you experience when the sound of a passing car or siren changes pitch as it goes by). Going deeper into this gets technical (boring), but that's the basis for time travel. Going up to the speed of light (constant...) moves you forward in time relative to others, and thus faster than the speed of light (after your brief moment of non-existence) should let you go back in time. Now let's do quantum!

Quantum is where all the fun happens. You get quantum suicide, quantum immortality, many worlds and universes, uncertainty principles, and superposition. The basis for quantum is that we don't know it, we can't see or discover it, and we can't test it. That makes it sound like a good job for the nutty scientists. In the scientific community, instead of saying WTF, they prefer to use the word quantum.

You get little particles; fermion, photons, bosons, just to name a few, and the crazy part is that they're so sensitive that they behave differently when observed. Imagine a small child, doing its thing, parents thinking it's the cutest thing in the world. They quickly grab a video camera to document it, but the child immediately becomes aware of the camera, and starts acting stupid. Quantum is the other way around. It's acting stupid, until we try to see what's going on, and then it starts behaving nicely.

Anything in science that acts stupid or insane deserves to be buried under stupid and insane theories. These stupid and insane theories often result in more stupid or insane science fiction movies (The One, with Jet Li; good example of quantum suicide, or rather quantum murder). If you want to discover more about quantum, just pick out a random science fiction movie, and it's bound to include a few quantum elements. I'm just waiting for them to make a movie about a cat in a box that may or may not get gassed, and it exists in the box in superposition (dead and alive at the same time, but not a zombie) until someone opens the box, and quantum makes a decision. Sounds ridiculous? You should read up on Schrodinger's cat; totally kicks the asses of Pavlov's dogs!

ABC's for Smart Kids

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

When we were in our early years in kindergarten and elementary school, we learned our alphabet with easy words, and we expected to remember it with the help of a song (some ABC song that has the same tune as "twinkle, twinkle little star"). There are schools for gifted children. These schools wouldn't have accepted regular old you or me. In these special schools they also teach the alphabet to genius kids, but instead of putting it all to a song, they decide to spend one day covering a topic starting with the corresponding letter in the alphabet. That way, they'll have the whole 26 letters of the alphabet memorized in one month, and they have covered some useful topics.

Now, you must understand they won't spend a whole day talking about "apple" and the next about "balloon". These are genius kids, so they've decided to cover all the basic topics in this elementary school, including but not limited to: geography, astronomy, geology, biology, physics, health, psychology, theology, Latin, ancient Greek, literature, spelling, history, government, law, business, business management, accounting, algebra, geometry, calculus, and chemistry. Here are the words of the day:

A - accelerometer
B - brachycatalectic
C - cynarctomachy
D - dextrosinistral
E - epiphenomenon
F - frontogenesis
G - geromorphism
H - haematencephalon
I - intertessellation
J - jentacular
K - kwashiorkor
L - leucopoiesis
M - magnetohydrodynamic
N - nonagenarian
O - onomatopoeia
P - parapsychology
Q - quadragintesimal
R - retromorphosis
S - suppressio veri
T - theopathy
U - ultracrepidarian
V - viscerotonic
W - wrack
X - xenodocheionology
Y - ypsiliform
Z - zoetrope

P.S. I made up one of these words

Wawee quite excellent coffee!

Michael Robert Meister — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

After reviewing the coffee menu at Wawee, I thought that Wawee at the most varying selection of gourmet coffees even though it was on the pricy side of things. Anyway Wawee along with Doi Tung Coffee are both great palces to hang out if you like me have a lot of homework piled up that needs to get done in a hurry then these coffee oasis are lovely to work at as well. Well that is all for me for this week, hope you will have a cup of joe just like me sometime this week. Mike signing off!

Best Headache Remedies

Ralph van den Berg — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

During a serious headache, absolutely nothing in the world seems worse. Pounding your head against a wall will only make it bleed, and decapitation is no longer the instant cure- scientists now believe that actual death happens a short time after the head is separated from the body. Now the best solution would be to find a way to prevent headaches, but most times, when we're actually on the topic, it's already too late, and you're more concerned with curing the headache you have now.

So if you're reading this because you're trying to find a cure to your current headache, stop. Staring at a computer screen causes eyestrains which are commonly associated with the causes of headaches and even migraines. This is your chance to tell your boss you have to leave work early.

If you're living and/or working in hotter climates, then a very likely cause to your headache is de-hydration. Many people forget to drink enough water throughout the day, and end up with severe headaches. This makes you wonder if that aspirin you took with 2 glasses of water is really the cure, or the water itself. It's never too late to re-hydrate yourself, so get yourself a glass of water.

A nice cup of coffee might do the trick for you. Drinking too much coffee can cause headaches and more headaches when you're quitting your caffeine addiction, but a small burst of the good stuff might actually help the pain subside. Actually, many painkillers you commonly get from pharmacies already contain some caffeine.

Taking a nap is actually the first thing you should try, but now that I've just given you some coffee to drink, that might be a bit harder. Many headaches you'll get over the decades won't be the same as before, so you could try this the next time. I also don't want to get you into trouble when your boss walks in on you while you're K.O. on your desk. Many people debate whether sleeping is actually the cure, or that it's just the time that's passed that cured your headache; either one is fine by me.

So let's assume we've had our caffeine, and napping is out of the question for now. If you're head still feels like it wants to turn itself inside out, try lightly massaging it. Some hotspots you could try are your temples, the back of your neck, and all over your scalp. Just pretend you are your own old dog, and let yourself go. Make sure you don't frown (like your dog might) while you do this. It's important to relax, and that includes your face.

It might be worth mentioning that you should be in a relaxed environment if you're suffering from a headache. If you happen to be in a disco or concert hall with Metallica, it might be a good idea to walk out. Tell your mates sorry, and tell Metallica that I made you do it. I hope this will help you feel better, and if you are one of the lucky ones reading this not currently suffering from a headache, then I hope this information will be useful the next time fate deals you one.

What do you do for headaches?

Boy who Cried Wolf

Ralph van den Berg — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

For those who are not familiar with the story, it basically goes as follows: A boy is watching some sheep. He gets bored and cries out that a wolf is attacking the sheep when actually nothing is going on. The nearby villagers come running to help, but find out they were fooled. This happens a few times, until a real wolf actually comes to attack the sheep. This time, when the boy cries for help, none of the villagers believe him, and they all stay in the pub.

Obviously this story is a kind of parable to teach young children not to lie, because when they eventually do tell the truth, nobody will believe them. "The Boy who Cried Wolf" has been around since 1673, and much of western civilization sees it as nothing more than that. I believe you can take this much further. You could use this kind of psychology to your advantage. Think about Pavlov's dogs, they started salivating when he rung a bell, even when he stopped giving them food.

"Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth."
Now imagine if you wanted to cover something up. Something is going to happen, but you don't want people to know about it. You could, in theory, stage a load of fake occurrences, let people believe them a little, but then prove them all fake (which is easy, because they are). Then when this real event happens, and there are reports about it, nobody would believe them!

Let's try it with some examples. Conspiracy theories could fall into this scheme quite easily. I'm not going to propose anything as fact; I just want to test my model. There are many theories and stories revolving around the events of 9/11, and it's quite obvious that not all of them can be true (some of them contradict each other). For example, there are theories that some or all of the planes were remote controlled. There are theories that the World Trade buildings were brought down by controlled demolition. There are theories about flight 93 concerning fake phone calls, and crashing vs. shot down. All these theories are fueled more by supposed government involvement (or lack thereof), missing (removed) evidence, and changing (official) stories. Now if the truth did come out somewhere, if it hasn't already, people would never recognize it, because there are already so many stories circulating and nobody knows what to believe. Here's a new theory: The government creates a bunch of hoax conspiracy theories to discredit and hide the truth.

I have an even better example for you. Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are real... Sometimes... There are a lot of sightings of alien spacecraft and most of them, I believe, are fake. The boy could be crying wolf here. Imagine the guys taking photographs of UFOs are the boy, and the rest of us are the villagers. Now a new twist on the story is that some external force (government, whatever you like to think is controlling your life) is sending in a bunch of fake wolves. The UFO photographers end up taking pictures of these fake UFOs and there is a small hype every time this happens (the villagers come running). Later on it's proven that these UFOs were fake, or even better, that the pictures were just photoshopped, and we stop trusting these UFO guys. Later on, a real alien spaceship comes to pay our dear government a visit, but it is spotted by some campers and they manage to take a somewhat blurry photograph with their cell phone. When they try to show this picture to people, you know, do the wolf cry, nobody's going to come running, because we're all sitting in the pub.

It gets even better when there are real encounters, and the lucky bastard who met the aliens just happened to be on drugs at the time, so their entire story is discredited. It's very easy to disbelieve a story from a guy who was "high at the time, dude". Here's a nice way to close this off: When aliens come to Earth, which they've done on numerous occasions (maybe... who cares), they will pick out individuals to abduct based on the following criteria: low IQ, alcoholic, lives in Dontknowdontcare, and must be intoxicated at the time. Bonus points if they pick up someone who's already a big fish tales guy.

And YouTube is really helping...

Late addition (12 March 2009): Have a look at this very relevant comic: White Ninja cries wolf

MyHome- Personalized Home Page

Ralph van den Berg — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0700

MyHome - Powered by RalphvandenBerg.com is a page that you can customize the way you like. As a member you can use this as your homepage, and make your internet experience smoother, easier and better.

Features:

Google Search
YouTube Search
Wikipedia Search
Yahoo Search
AltaVista Search
Google Image Search

Simple searching is one of the main activities of people online. Now you can search for what you need straight out of MyHome using many of the popular search engines.

To include or remove particular searches, simply turn them "on" or "off" in the "customize" section of MyHome.

CNN news
BCC news
Forex Quotes
Etc...

Choose which news feeds you would like to display on MyHome, so that you won't miss important news stories. You can pick from a selection that is always getting better, and you can easily change contents if you get bored of a particular feed.

Latest Ramblings
Messages - Inbox
My Friends

Make sure you don't miss out on what's going on at RalphvandenBerg.com. You can easily access your new messages, send messages to your friends, and accept new friend requests.

Personal Bookmarks
Quick Links
Customizable
Etc...

You can create links and organize them in three drop-down menus, so that web pages that you visit often will be just one click away. These links will be available on any computer that you log in to, so you can think of it like a portable bookmark carrier.

To add links to your drop down menus, click on "edit / add" on the bottom of the drop down menu you want to make changes to. You will see a window where you can stick new links in, remove old links, or simply shift them around. The formatting for a successful link is: url Name of your Link (the url first, then a space, and then the name of the link as you want it to appear in the menu). For an empty slot just type break so you can easily group sets of links.

Topping it off, you can customize the looks of MyHome by going to the "customize" page, and choosing colors and settings that best suit your preferences. For example, you can set it so that all links automatically open up in new windows or tabs.

Members only
MyHome is a feature which is for members of RalphvandenBerg.com only. To take full advantage of this tool, make sure you log in here first, or if you aren't a member yet, anybody can join for free.

Check it out:

MyHome.RalphvandenBerg.com

Improvements will be happening all the time. I am one of the faithful users of MyHome, and I will always be looking for ways to make it better! If you have questions or suggestions, please put them in the comments below.

Terry Pratchett Quotes -part 3

Ralph van den Berg — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0700

Bad spelling can be lethal. For example, the greedy Seriph of Al-Yabi was cursed by a badly-educated deity and for some days everything he touched turned to Glod, which happened to be the name of a small dwarf from a mountain community hundreds of miles away who found himself magically dragged to the kingdom and relentlessly duplicated. Some two thousand Glods later the spell wore off. These days, the people of Al-Yabi are renowned for being remarkably short and bad-tempered.

God does not play dice with the universe: He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won' t tell you the rules, and who *smiles all the time*.

Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows. [footnote: Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed, and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really cause misunderstandings.]

"This isn' t how I imagined it, chaps," said War. "I haven' t been waiting for thousands of years just to fiddle around with bits of wire. It' s not what you' d call *dramatic*. Albrecht Duerer didn' t waste his time doing woodcuts of the Four Button-Pressers of the Apocalypse, I do know that."

Sam Vimes could parallel process. Most husbands can. They learn to follow their own line of thought while at the same time listening to what their wives say. And the listening is important, because at any time they could be challenged and must be ready to quote the last sentence in full. A vital additional skill is being able to scan the dialogue for telltale phrases such as "and they can deliver it tomorrow" or "so I' ve invited them for dinner?" or "they can do it in blue, really quite cheaply."

Ridcully was to management what King Herod was to the Bethlehem Playgroup Association. His mental approach to it could be visualised as a sort of business flowchart with, at the top, a circle entitled "Me, who does the telling" and, connected below it by a line, a large circle entitled "Everyone else".

Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.

If at first you don't succeed

Ralph van den Berg — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0700