Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Train Travel Times Map (NL)

The NS has an open API to its travel advice and departure times per station. I played a bit with the API to see how it works and what you can do with it. I plotted a map of the Netherlands with the travel times from a selected station to other stations as distances on the map, in the geographical direction of the station. You can do a lot with it as pimp showed me on this site.

It was just some fun scripting (Python) and crude plotting (Matlab) for me. A total of 200 lines of code. I am aware the plots are not the best way to visualise this, but I am probably not going to spend more time on it, unless there would be a practical use for these graphs, so here they are.

Distances between train stations and the "central station" are train travel times. Click for large size plz.

From Utrecht Centraal to x

From Delft to x

From Groningen to x

From Stavoren to x

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Cool anti aids comercial

AIDES - Sexy Fingers from Sven Karelsen

On the title link you can play youre own instruments (boobs,balls, asses, dildo's, etc) it was my wtf moment for me on this sunday :)

Thursday, July 21, 2011

RC Helicopters and Cameras

It's amazing that amateurs can now make these kinds of videos. They should give the demonstrators in the Middle East a few of these and some training. Also, why aren't journalists using this yet?

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Meisjes met ijsjes - Discodip


Is dit de nieuwe zomerhit? Hij staat iig op de shortlist van mn mixtape.

Andere plaatjes die worden getipt als zomerhit:





En hier nog een overzicht met alle genomineerden

Monday, July 18, 2011

Apple vs HTC (Android)

Update (18 July 2011): 
"Apple on Friday dealt a serious legal blow to HTC and the Android platform in general. A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has ruled that HTC infringed on two patents Apple submitted in a March 2010 complaint.
(...)
The two patents relate to how data is processed. The first patent is described as a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data,” which Apple says applies, for example, to tapping a phone number and being prompted options to call or look it up on the web. The second is described as a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data,” which Apple says relates to data processed in real-time applications." ~ read more...

Original post (16 March 2010):
Apple has sued Nokia and others before. It now sues HTC for its Android smartphones. Most are software related so a direct attack on Google's Android. Are they too scared to sue Google? Here is how engadget describes some of the 20 patent claims:

"According to the claims, it's a method of moving a GUI object along a path with a non-constant velocity for a period of time"
"scroll behavior: starting a scroll in a single direction locks you in that direction, but starting it at an angle lets you pan around freely"
"unlocking a touchscreen device by moving an unlock image."
"it's technical to the point where we don't feel comfortable saying exactly what it means, but it covers building graphics objects with a processor and outputting them through various means."
"a system specifically described in the abstract as presenting a context-sensitive menu on the screen."
"'983 is from 2001 and describes an OS in which apps can access native system services and those services can make use of data associated with an object."
"it covers parsing data for known structures like phone numbers, address, and dates, and then taking action with that data."
"it hits on the idea that a foreground app can direct a background process to go do some task while the foreground app remains responsive." 


Fuck, they may as well sue Microsoft for Windows. Oh wait, they already did in 1994.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Wikipedia trivia

Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".
I tried it a few times and it worked. From the alt-text of this XKCD comic.

The city Amsterdam photoshop their self greener

What if the photo's you wana use as a promotion of green/sustainable roofing are not green enough. You hire in youre nephew and he photoshop some solar panels in the photo's. Atleast thats what the maker of this city of Amsterdam promotion folder thought.
the real photo
Photoshop

Thursday, July 14, 2011

'Lost' rainbow toad rediscovered

The Sambas Stream toad is also known as the Bornean rainbow toad, with the scientific name Ansonia latidisca. The long-legged, multicolored toad was described by European explorers in the 1920s, and was last seen in 1924. Das' team identified three individuals — an adult female, an adult male and a juvenile, ranging in size from roughly an inch to 2 inches (30 to 51 millimeters).

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

GLOWSTICKS!!1!

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Google Bid π Billion Dollars for Patents

In the rest of the auction Google also bet the distance between the earth and the sun and a few other odd values.
So was Google serious or just bored or providing a hint to anyone paying attention.
Google lost the auction, by they way, and a group of six companies - Apple, Microsoft, RIM, EMC, Ericsson and Sony - finally paid $4.5 billion.

Friday, July 01, 2011