Anouk - The Dark

I'm not always fond of Anouk's music, it is not really my style. Sometimes though, she just blows me away. After 8 years, this clip still manages to impress me.

And... the Irish said 'No'.

Here is an idea, if the Irish don't want to play along with the EU, why not keep the following referendum in Ireland: "Should Ireland trade in its EU membership for an EFTA membership?". If implemented, it would join the ranks of countries like Switzerland and Norway, which profit from the open market, but don't want to transfer sovereign powers to the EU. Of course, they also don't benefit from EU subsidies and grants.

In my opinion, the Irish rejection illustrates nicely why it may not be desirable to maintain the principle that one nation, and one nation alone, can hold back a decision on a continental scale.

The Lisbon Treaty, Yes or No?

At this point, the vote-count is still on and the future of the European Union is on a knife's edge. If Ireland has turned down the Treaty of Lisbon in their referendum, it could throw back the reform process of the EU for at least another few years. Or, in the words of a member of the European Parliament when asked what the backup plan is for the EU in case of an Irish 'no': "Plan B? There is no plan B".

So, either way, the Irish are about to write history, and the world is closely watching them as they tally the votes. For those outside of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty is a slightly altered version of the European Constitution, which was shot out of the water in a Dutch and a French referendum. The idea being that, with the enlargement from 15 to 27 countries (and a few more in ascension talks), the EU's current decision process (requiring unanimity) is inefficient. The supporters of the treaty point out that, for the EU to function properly, member states should give up their veto in favor for majority decisions (55% of the member states, representing 65% of the population, for the European Council and a majority in the European Parliament). The skeptics will tell you the treaty asks us to sacrifice sovereignty to a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels.

Where do I stand in this discussion? I'm a supporter of the treaty, but I can't say I'm insensitive to the arguments of the Nay-camp. The EU is a political experiment without precedent, it is difficult to predict whether changes in legislation will work for the better or not - we have no previous case to compare with. With my country's future in the balance, I have to admit that I do feel a bit nervous when politicians start to tinker with the current formula. Yet, I do believe (and believe is the only proper word, as I have no evidence to support either side of the argument), that further European integration is "A Good Thing". Not only to be a counter weight to other blocks in the world, not only to harmonize the myriad of different sets of rules we now suffer from, not only to strengthen our market economies, but also to make sure we realize that we, as Europeans, are interdependent.

What happens in Latvia, is our concern. What happens in Portugal, does have its effects throughout the Union, if our countries are linked to each other like chains in a necklace. I have the hope that this will make us look out for each other. We don't want corruption to take over in Romania, because a corrupt Romanian government is a cancer within our community; and as such, it needs to be taken care of by the European community. A real chance to create lasting peace, stability and prosperity for the whole continent. In my opinion, that is something worth making sacrifices for.

Joshua Klein: The amazing intelligence of crows

I really recommend TED talks; they cover topics as different as string theory and moving sculptures. This one happens to be about crows, which seem to be intelligent enough to be both very fascinating and slightly scary.



Favorite quote from that TED talk: "So that's the part where the researchers freak out..."

Look at me

Look at me, searching for full comprehension,
although aware I'll never taste sweet understanding,
futile and unavoidable, I float about without direction.

Look at me, frozen in the long empty marble hall,
lost in my own cosmos, without a goal, I dream vividly,
silhouettes dance in my illusion, as in a royal ball.

Look at me, staring back at your eyes,
drifting further in your realm, I wonder,
will you find my carefully hidden lies?

Zoals de golven...

Zoals de golven bij eb en vloed het strand eten,
veegt tijd geduldig jouw indrukken uit,
todat ik, gelukkig en vrij, jou ben vergeten.

Van aangewakkerde passie, nauwelijks ingetogen,
via brandende stille liefde, alles consumerend,
tot een gedoofde fakkel, van ziel ontvlogen.

Asus eee 701

Asia already had this little gadget in stores for months now. For the US and UK it is old news too. But for continental Europe, the Asus eee series is still something new. I had put myself on a pre-order list way back in November 2007, but got tired with listening to the "next month, really!" excuses from the import company. Thus, I canceled that order, and waited for them to arrive in the stores, which happened in the first two weeks of May. Now, finally, via my company, I have the chance to play around with one.

It's cute!



I put the DVD case on the keyboard as a comparison in size. You see, it is rather tiny, a class below normal-sized laptops. I believe the official term would be: an ultra-mobile PC, or UMPC. The Asus 701 weighs about 1kg, so it is ideal to just toss in my back-pack and take it along to... well... anywhere, I suppose. I say toss, because it is a fairly robust piece of technology. It has no hard drive, but a SSD (solid state drive). Think of the kind of memory you get on an USB-stick, but faster. Plus points: no delicate moving parts (as in an ordinary hard drive), and rather quick. Negatives: not much storage, only 4Gb (and that's not counting the OS).

It comes installed with a modified Xandros distribution (that's Linux and no Windows). For those familiar with the Linux world: the window manager is an old KDE, a far cry from the spiffy Gnome I've come to know from my Ubuntu desktop at work, but still very functional. On top of Xandros, Asus got it pre-packaged with a number of well known apps: Skype (which works fine with the built in 0.3M webcam), Pidgin, Firefox and Thunderbird to name but a few.

The tiny screen (7"), the low resolution (800 by 480) and the small keyboard do take some getting used to, but after some tweaking with font-sizes and tool bars the screen is reasonably usable and, well, after some adapting, the keyboard turns out to be manageable. Given the price, about 300 EUR, I can certainly live with those limitations. For the functionality you get out of it, it's a bargain.

So, in short, yes, I love it.