PJHearts

United Colors Of America

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:22:00 +0000

Although Americans are mostly conservative they sometimes choose to try out something completely different and never done before. Like a black or coloured guy to be their president. Yes you can!
Obama can make a change, but like most predecessors he will encounter resistance.
First of course he'll need to repair some of the damage caused by 8 years of Bush.
Then there's this crisis caused by greed, overconsumption and mismanagement.
The party is over, it's back to work now, for those who still have a job.
But some still don't realise it. Bankers and others in the top management of financial companies gave themselves billions of dollars of bonuses, even though their failure is apparent.
In the meantime Obama himself creates business opportunities for makers of action figures,
'Yes Pecan' icecream and a recordcompany selling a compilation cd 'A Change Is Gonna Come'.

Year Of The Rat

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:58:00 +0000

This year it's the 'Year of the Rat", according to the Chinese. Rats are appreciated as intelligent creatures by them, while in the Western world and most civilized parts of the world they are considered as vermin.
Whereas dogs are popular companions for Westerners, they are popular in China for their meat.
The rotten communist regime of China, responsible for millions of Chinese and Tibetans being killed for political reasons, during the "Cultural revolution" in China and the occupation of Tibet, is desperately trying to keep the Chinese and Tibetan people in mental slavery.
Like in Aldous Huxley's "Animal farm", a satire on communism, some pigs, or rats, are.more equal than others; Although communism was meant as a system where all are equal and everything should be in the benefit of all, the communist party of China considers itself as an elite, guiding the ordinary people. This communist elite is much better off than the people.
They try to keep them satisfied by giving them the freedom of consumerism, but that won't work much longer.
Because of the Olympic Games, this year in China, the gouvernment tries to put up a facade of civilisation and prosperity, demolishing poor neighboorhoods in Beijing (Peking) with little consideration for those who live there, locking up dissidents to keep them away from journalists...
Dissidents like Lu Gengson, who got 4 years of prison for writing about corrupt politicians.
If you are a dissident in China you may end up as an unvoluntary organ donor.

A few days ago the Chinese occupiers crushed protests by Tibetans of whom maybe up to 100 were killed and others who were captured shown to the public in a humiliting way.
The Tibetans are victims of a cultural genocide, since their peaceful nation was brutally put under Chinese rule. The policy is to make the Tibetans a minority in their own country and their relegion is submit to communist rule..
The Chinese communists showed their ugly evil face once again. Bad publicity for them of course.
But the civilized world could now force a breakthrough for (more) freedom and independence for Tibet. Until now the Chinese occupation of tibet wasn't much of an issue in international politics, because - specially the Western nations - have economical interests in China.

Let's free Tibet and the Chinese people from communist slavery!

Life / Live

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 06 May 2007 12:04:00 +0000

Life

Some people are not satisfied with one (real) life and create a (virtual) Second Life.
But real life is more and more intruding in the virtual world.
People are making money in it buying/selling virtual land or property - Anshe Chung became the first SL millionair - and companies are exploring the possibilities of product marketing and job recruiting in Second Life.
Virtual political riots have taken place and even an bomb attack.
Musicians like AIR, Jay-Z and Suzanne Vega performed for a public of avatars.

Live

Paradiso, the concert hall in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, publishes video recordings of live concerts at fabchannel.com.
At video.google.com you can find lots of concert videos and video clips too, including historical footage of Woodstock and The Beatles for example.
If you are a jazz fan you should check out Jazz Tube.

Global Warming

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 13:50:00 +0000

In Europe we are having the warmest Fall in centuries. Is that caused by the 'global warming'?
The ski resorts in the Swiss and Austrian Alps may have a bad season because there isn't much snow, nature is confused and trees blossoming like it's Spring.

According to some scientists there's no global warming but a shift of the thermical balance between the North and South Pole; the northern part of our world is getting warmer with more rainfall and the southern part is becoming colder and dryer. Wanna see the effect of Global Warming? Get the Global Warming Mug!
Politicians in Europe suddenly are interested and worried about envirenmental issues after Al Gore's visit to Europe, where he did his presentation of "An unconvenient truth". The prime minister of the Netherlands, where I live, Harry Potter, and Tony Blair felt the need to write a letter about it, although they really don't give a shit about it.
Usually they are more interested in unlimited economic growth.

I M 9/11 - 5 Years Later

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 10:28:00 +0000

Like millions of people all over the I saw the unthinkable horror of Nine-Eleven live on tv; the first tower was burning and then the second plane crashing into the WTC.

Now it's 5 years later and it still is in our minds, not only because what happened that day, but also because it was an introduction to years of more terror, wars, governments deceiving the people. Citizens of the free world are more and more restricted in their freedom and checked for suspicious behauvior for 'security reasons', so the islam fundamentalists who envie our freedom can be satisfied.
The press in the western world, specially in the US, was limited in it's search for objective information and got false information from governments. By saying "Either you're with us or you're against us" president G.W. Bush suggested that any critizism on his policy was suspicious.
And most of the US media were (more than) willing to comply with this rule.

These days you can read and watch many articles and documentaries about 9/11, about how it happened, what went wrong, conspiracy theories and the aftermath.
Here are some links to information and comments:

The 9/11 Commision Report
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, an educational comic strip version of the report
There was also a Spiderman and Superman 9/11 comic and Art Spiegelman's "In The shadow Of No Towers".

Joel Meyerowitz published a book, "Aftermath", with photo's of Ground Zero. In 9 months he made about 8.500 photo's of the scene. On the 5th of September he had took a picture of the Twin Towers in all their glory, from his loft-window in Manhattan.

911 Digital archive, a collection of personal stories, pictures, drawings expressing feelings and comments on 9/11.

The Memory Hole, a site with recordings of conversations of airtraffic-controllers, policemen, firefighters in the World Trade Center, radio, reports and articles.

Mobile photos

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:50:00 +0000

Now I don't have a normal internet connection anymore (only through my mobile phone or at the public library) I have to explore new ways to post new items to my weblogs.

One way is to use a mobile phone, with a camera built-in, and that's what I started to do recently. I've send cameraphone pictures to my photo site at Flickr and I have setup a new site at Msn Space (bilingual, English & Dutch) where I send them to also.

New Orleans - The Aftermath

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 12:05:00 +0000

Months after Katrina hit New Orleans, people are trying to rescue their homes from total destruction, by the authorities if they are 50% or more damaged.

Lots of N.O. residents still forced to live temporary elsewhere.
But the Mardi Gras was celebrated anyway, although it was a "bitter sweet" one, said the Mayor.

The Dutch connection

Civil engineers of the Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch authority on waterways and the protection of them, were invited to the US to advise on the subject of the protection of New Orleans and a delegation from Louisiana visited the socalled "Delta Works", the system of protection against flooding of the Netherlands, built after the catastrophic flooding in 1953.
Dutch architects made designs for rebuilding New Orleans

More links about New Orleans after Katrina:

Metroblogging New Orleans N.O. flickr group (photo collection)

The World In Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 14:57:00 +0000

Still without internet connection at home (entering this post at the public library) I find some interesting links in magazines and newspapers occasionally.
Like this website that show the world's hot news in a collection of pictures.

At this date it goes back to 2004 (click on 'History') and you can choose a photo collection by clicking on one of the words from the list on the right.

Interesting concept.

More pictures that showed what was going on in the world can be found at World Press Photo, which has a yearly contest for professional photographers and recently choose a new selection of meaningful photos

Disconnected

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 10:19:00 +0000

Hello dear visitor, thanks for dropping by. I haven't been able to update my blog lately.
Since 3 days I'm without internet-connection and before that I only had a connection through dialup. I hope to have a dsl-connection again soon.
In the Netherlands where I live you need a phoneline connected by the former state-owned phonecompany who had a monopoly for a long time, to get a dsl-connection, in most cases.
Recently ther are more offers that can do without the phoneline, but not many companies have a network that covers the whole country.
As a web-addict I miss the daily browsing, listening to podcasts online, or downloading them, working on my websites, chatting with friends.
And of course I'm missing some of the hype and buzz going on on the web.

I hope to be able to post some more interesting news here soon, so don't forget to come back now and then!

Hurricane Katrina blogging

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 19:51:00 +0000

Quickly after the hurricane Katrina disaster bloggers started posting messages and photos to the web and special web-pages were set-up for exchanging information.
People who live or happen to be in the disaster-area tell first-hand stories, show photos of the scene, or give practical information like maps, lists of survivors.

Metroblogging New Orleans

A list of where people are and how to contact them

The Hurricane Katrina photo pool (flickr)

Hurricane Katrina disaster

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 15:58:00 +0000

After hurricane Katrina another disaster struck the south of the US: inaction and incompetence of the authorities.

FEMA, the federal emergency agency is doing press-conferences while people are dying, governors keep saying military troops are send in for rescue operations and to restore order,
so where are these troops hiding? Thugs are ruling the city with weapons they looted from the supermarket, a New Orleans police office had to protect itself against them with snipers, 20 percent of police officers didn't show up for duty in New Orleans. What is this? Some third world country?

Listen to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, fed up with slow response (CNN-webpage), interviewed by WWL Radio

In the meantime thousands of people are still trapped in alarming conditions in hospitals, elderly homes, churches, and dying like animals....And many are still missing.

I'm afraid there's a cynical, racial issue playing a part in this inaction: most of the victims are black and poor.....not very interesting for politicians to care for.....

Personal Digital Visuals

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 19:37:00 +0000

Nowadays there are many tools to digitally visualise your life, your environment and happenings and make it public.
You can put your home-movies on your web-site, or post your camera-phone photos to a online photo-album, or use tools that create maps, satellite or 3d-images to show where you are, or have been.

At the photo-site flickr.com you can see a daily refreshed collection of photos tagged 'burning man', which are posted from the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.

The Google Earth tool is used to create a movie of a fly by Seattle tour, combined computer-generated images with live video. With Google maps it is possible to visualise a tour through a city or a marathon course.

Space, Man!

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 19:23:00 +0000

Damage discovery
The Shuttle has been launched to space again, it connected to the spacestation (ISS), you can watch the live or recorded videos on NASA TV (wmp/real), but there was a nasty discovery: (small) damage to the heatshield. Which on a larger scale caused the fatal crash of a shuttle returning to earth.
Let's hope this crew gets home safely.

Update!
One of the astronauts onboard the shuttle, Steve Robinson, has recorded the first podcast from space
Update 2!
The shuttle landed safely this morning, Tuesday, August 9 2005, at Edwards Air Force Base in California!

More space-related stuff
- Google has made a photomap of the moon on which you can see the landingspots of the Apollo- missions,
- You can see Quicktime VR panoramas of the Apollo 11-17 missions to the moon,
- a 10th planet (or is it not a planet?), larger than Pluto, has been discovered in the outlying regions of the solar system.

Revenge Of The Nerds

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 12:44:00 +0000

Many manufacturers of hardware and software produce stuff that is crippled in it's use and with locked features, like mp3-players that only cooperate with certain software or os's. They don't want the customer to use it as freely as the custumer wants it.
But there are clever nerds, who use their creative talents to liberate those products from their chains, so users, who paid for a fully-functional item, can fully enjoy it.
Sometimes these 'hackers' go even further and turn something in a completely different thing, with funny results.
There are special websites dedicated to this and 'Hackaday' is one of them
hack a day - www.hackaday.com _

Freedom for all!

Update about Claude Lelouch movie

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Tue, 31 May 2005 14:46:00 +0000

On Januari 10, this year, I posted an article about a short movie by the French director Claude Lelouch, called 'Rendezvous', showing a rollercoaster ride through Paris (France) in the nineteen-seventies, by a guy on the way to a meeting with his girl.
The link to the movie-file in that post appears to be dead, as I found out at Michael Meiser's blog. But there is another place where you can find i t, in a much smaller size.

There are also some other interesting articles to be found about this movie that has a "cult" status: one is a review on a site about cult films, and another is an excerpt from a biography of Claude Lelouch about the movie (in french).

Institute for Backup Trauma

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 08:51:00 +0000

John Cleese fans, here's a tip for you!

He's a doctor in "Institute for Backup Trauma", an ad for backup software.
It's about traumas caused by backup troubles with oldfashioned tapes, and it's really funny

Institute for Backup Trauma

Al Green - Minister of Soul

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:54:00 +0000

He did it again. My all time favorite music artist Al Green, the master of spiritual soul with the golden voice, has released a new album, Everything's OK. This album is much more than ok.

Listen here: http://www.bluenote.com/algreenplayer/ if you need to be convinced.
The New York Times has a meaningful article about him and the album:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/19/arts/music/19gree.html

With A Little Help From Her Friends

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 23:50:00 +0000

Lately I heard on Wholewheatradio about Mary Travers, of the Peter Paul & Mary folk-group. She's suffering from leukemia and is hopefully getting a bone marrow transplant in the New York hospital where she'll be for 6 weeks or more.
Let's all help her get through this, even if you don't know her. That would be a good use of the internet, to get people from all over the world to join for a good cause.
Forget your selfish thoughts to blog about for a moment and help a lady in distress.

You can do this by sending her 'get well' wishes, something to cheer her up, to the special email-address getwellmary@aol.com. Let's hear it for the girl!

The Place Where I Live

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sat, 19 Feb 2005 13:07:00 +0000

Hello visitors,

I posted some pictures of my home to my photo-album site,
so if your interested in where and how I live, take a look.

The Place Where I Live - a photoset on Flickr

IPod very popular at Microsoft

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 13:18:00 +0000

About two thirds of the Microsoft employees seem to be using Apple's iPod instead of audioplayers supported by Microsoft software. This worries the MS management a lot.

Hilarious, isn't it?!

Wired News: Hide Your IPod, Here Comes Bill

About arty

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 22:59:00 +0000

I've set up a new weblog about art (link below) which is a temporary tryout at Typepad, for about 3 months. You might find some interesting articles there, so take a look!

arty

Update: my typepad weblog (tryout) has expired. I've put the articles on a new page at my art site: http://www.geocities.com/pyhoo5/arty_tp.html

Funnie Movie-clips

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 13:53:00 +0000

Today I found two short movie-clips, both commercials, but the one for VW is a fake I believe.
I read somewhere on the internet that VW is going to take action against the maker/publisher.
The other one for John West (well-known for canned fish) is quite hilarious.

Here are the links: http://www.mikesimon.com/funny/bear.mpeg
and: http://www.student.kun.nl/h.huijbers/pics/VW_20_b3.mov

My new geocities website about my art

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 19:51:00 +0000

This evening I've set up a new website to show some of my artworks and info about me as an artist.

Have a look at my computer art, drawings and photos.

Patrick and his Art

The World Wide Panorama

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:05:00 +0000

You can have a look at the landscapes and monuments of the world on the website referred below. It shows Quicktime VR panorama (360 degrees) pictures in which you can move up and down and all around.

The World Wide Panorama

Macworld San Francisco 2005 Expo Keynote

noreply@blogger.com (PJH's blog) — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 10:46:00 +0000

Steve Jobs, still going strong after his cancer treatment, presented some great new Apple stuff at the MacWorld that's going on in San Francisco these days. I don't want to advertise for some company, but you got to admire those clever guys, who know so well how to make a computer more fun and ideal for creative people. The Mac Mini, the new computer that is not much bigger than a discman, the new iLife software with amazing features like High Definition movie editing, the iPod Shuffle, an mp3-player with the size of a lighter, and much more...
What a difference with Microsoft, Steve Balmer at their presentation yelling like a lunatic about some new dull features in dull software like Word and calling mp3 users thieves. Bill Gates saying free content makers and promotors (webloggers, podcasters) are commies. They don't like things they can't control and make big money with. First they should finally fix those mayor security holes in their crappy operatingsystem. This mediacenter thing is so dull too, tv watching on your computer, wow some invention?!

Apple - QuickTime - Macworld San Francisco 2005 Expo Keynote