I’m just back from Amersfoort where I’ve quite successfully finished a half marathon, 21.1 km.
The day’s been a scorcher with 27 °C (81 °F) in the shade. On the Dutch scale it’s a lot, and with a clear blue sky you feel like being roasted.
When a geek gets bored, he usually dives into home automation. And when there’s nothing more left to automate, he blogs about it.
When leaving my house I usually check the weather forecast for today and if there are any train disruptions. The thing is, it takes precious time and I’m usually in a hurry. Therefore the idea of having all the useful information on a single display was in the air for quite a while. Recently I’ve finally got to implement it. Please meet InfoPi.
The last Queen’s Day to date happened three years ago, when Princess Beatrix, then still the Queen of the Netherlands, announced her upcoming abdication for her son Willem-Alexander. The latter celebrates his birthday on April 27th, which is very conveniently near the former date of April 30th.
Moore's law teamed up with the Chinese electronic device industry are inserting new steps into the Lansink’s Ladder. Next to the sections for used fluorescent bulbs and batteries, which are classified as klein chemisch afval (household hazardous waste), Albert Heijn grocery stores have now added a separate opening for used mobile phones!
Igor Abakumov, also known as Mr. Raskolnikov, an ex-member of Radiolaria, has shared some new material with me: tracks that were recorded for his own solo project called Zapreschennaya Akustika (“Forbidden Acoustics”). Even though it’s a home recording and perhaps you can’t really appreciate the Russian lyrics, the musical aspect seemed quite interesting to me.
So far four new tracks are available, all of them pertain to the sky for some reason:
Last weekend, on March 19, 2016, the author of these lines has qualified for the first dan Aikido Aikikai.
The band Dream Theater is absolutely legendary. They are considered the founders of the progressive metal genre, and each of them alone is equally legendary. If you doubt that, just watch their Instrumedley video; not many musicians in the world are capable of playing something like that.
The band was presenting their new album The Astonishing in the Theater Carré in Amsterdam on February 23rd.
If you think I pay too much attention to Stream of Passion, I can tell you I’ve seen a man on the show for whom that show of the band was the 94th.
Moreover, with the ticket price of €14 it would be stupid not to go.
Today, January 17, 2016, the nature has made an unexpected move. Last night a very thin layer of snow lay on the ground, for the first time in this winter.
My personal concert season open by the Nightwish fellas is at its climax.
I was fortunate to see a very popular (yet kind of underground) band called The Aristocrats on December 9th. The band is playing some mindbogglingly complex tunes ranged from Jazz Fusion to Heavy Prog.
