CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-24 21:06:20 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Going to bed in a bit. Suffering severe pain at exploratory surgery wounds in lower abdomen again. Not feeling happy this way :(

2013-05-24 14:47:52 (15 comments, 4 reshares, 8 +1s)

Seems like Microsoft better have something interesting game-wise up its sleeves for E3 with the XBox One or we may be seeing a massive exodus away from the XBox ecosystem.

Regardless of these poll results, I'm hearing pretty much the same thing elsewhere. Gamers are disappointed with what the XBox One is portrayed to be and offers. They feel that the Playstation 4 offers a proper gaming experience, with a friendly environment for indie developers and no extra fees for used or borrowed games.

I can imagine a few very happy Sony executives at this point :)

2013-05-24 08:46:48 (25 comments, 5 reshares, 11 +1s)

I talked about this a long time ago already, in my vlog video titled: "Intersex, sexuality... and me". Intersex, and linked to it sexuality, are such massive topics for me due to the ignorance and brainwashing by Dutch physicians and psychologists. Back then it was massive already, but it just keeps growing. The trauma and pain... it went past unbearable years ago already. I have come to loathe, despise and hate sexuality and being intersex with an incredible intensity as a result.

A number of weeks ago I expressed the hope that this surgeon I had contacted via a friend might be able to help me get my full body back by having the existing vagina opened and restored. This would have fixed a lot of the pain and put me on a path to recovery. This wasn't meant to be, however. This surgeon has rejected any help for me as well.

[Read on after the link...]

2013-05-24 06:36:30 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Great, Flickr got all these new awesome features and increased space :D

...too bad they/Yahoo support locked me out of my account years ago and I have been unable to make use of it, beyond receiving notifications about said account.

Anyone else have a zombie account like that due to bone-headed 'account-recovery' procedures?

2013-05-23 20:22:03 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

I finally got a new mouse today after my previous one (free mouse provided with the new laptop) started suffering from the 'double-click' syndrome.

It's a cheap gaming mouse, but it looks spiffy with red/pink/purple LEDs and a futuristic styling. It's also 2400 DPI, which means that it can actually keep up with me :D

I have mouse speed in Windows set to the highest setting, and with 2400 DPI mode enabled it's finally fast enough to keep up with my thoughts :3

2013-05-23 19:34:27 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

I'm currently implementing sessions in WildFox.

It will be akin to the Session Manager add-on for Firefox which I have been using for many years now, with some changes. Of course it will be fully integrated into the browser, with the ability to save, open and switch between sessions.

More advanced features will come later, such as the ability to merge and manage sessions and to use any SQL backend as storage (right now limited to SQLite).

As always, feel free to pitch in a few cents if you like what I'm doing :)

2013-05-23 17:14:32 (7 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

I just got my new JVC GZ-EX515 camcorder and I'm trying to figure out WTH the video quality settings in the menu mean. The linked manual tells me nothing.

What I want to know what each mode (UXP, XP, SP, EP) gives me in terms of resolution, FPS and bitrate.

Anyone has a clue here?

Edit: If the manual for the previous generation is a hint, then all four modes record in 1920x1080 at 50p, just at different bitrates: http://manual3.jvckenwood.com/c1a/lyt2269-002en/3730SYbjskdsxv.html#3730MLbgomittl

Silly that the new manual doesn't have this info...

2013-05-23 13:06:46 (9 comments, 4 reshares, 15 +1s)

When people call you out on your past and current actions, it's nice to have something as charged as 'anti-Semitism' to fall back on.

Unfortunately for Israel, decades of yelling 'wolf' and trying to explain why they are putting millions of people into massive concentration camps surrounded by massive concrete walls after taking away their farms and other methods of living, is now coming to a gradual end.

Nothing about what is changing in the world's opinion towards Israel is about anti-Semitism, but instead it's about pure and basic human rights. If Israel's government want to play the 'anti-Semitism' card, it's alright to compare the attempted genocide by the Nazis with the attempted genocide by the Israeli government against the Palestinians and other groups.

Fair is fair.

2013-05-22 18:59:15 (24 comments, 1 reshares, 20 +1s)

After this gruesome attack in London it is easy to predict what will happen. People will see justified in seeing Muslims as terrorists, resulting in them losing jobs, have trouble finding new jobs, get bullied at schools, shunned in the community and pushed to the sidelines of society as though they're pariah.

It should bear no surprise that the next generation of children who grow up in these conditions will feel more and more justified in carrying out vicious attacks like the one in Boston and this one in London.

The world is caught in a self-reinforcing cycle of death and destruction, fed by the blind ignorance, fear and hatred of 'them'.

Hopefully it can be stopped in time. People should see others as just that, people. Start labeling people as belonging to a group and things start going downwards.

2013-05-22 17:11:14 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

I sure do love the tax office here... their login system breaks, I call them to get my account unlocked, can only be done by having them snail mail me new login data to my registered address. Of course I'm unable to pick up mail there until the legal matter to get my apartment back has been settled.

Once I do get the place back I'll have to file a complaint against the tax office for making me pay fees for being late with filing taxes, which I couldn't file in time due to their broken system.

Stuff like this just makes me want to vanish into the night and give up on 'civilization'... I'll go live on a mountain side somewhere, thank you very much.

2013-05-22 12:34:46 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Using the Android SDK emulator with an Atom image of 2.3.3 and the Intel HAX accelerator I'm pleasantly surprised at the speed boost it gives compared to the regular ARM-based emulator.

Whereas the latter runs like an anemic 100 MHz ARMv5 system, the former is snappy and seems to run at almost real-time. I can notice no real differences with my dual-core, ARM Cortex-A8-based Galaxy Nexus at any rate.

OpenGL ES performance is probably a whole other can of beans, but this is a major start at least :)

Anyone happens to know what OpenGL ES performance is like with this setup? Are you going to test a 3D game with it, or might a 2D game just eek out?

2013-05-22 07:35:55 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 6 +1s)

Amusing editorial at Engadget about the Wii U being doomed due to using a PowerPC architecture instead of x86 like the PS4 and X1.

Breaking down its own arguments, it points out that the PS4 and X1 both can not provide backwards-compatibility due to switching from PPC to x86.

As the PPC CPU in the Wii U is in fact based on the quite modern POWER 7 architecture instead of the in-order, outdated POWER 6 architecture, this whole editorial oozes with ignorance about the actual technical details involved.

And as for an underpowered system taking it up against the 'big boys'... relatively speaking the Wii U is more powerful compared to the PS4/X1 than the Wii was against the X360/PS3. Quite an improvement there, I'd say.

2013-05-21 19:35:12 (20 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Fantastic video review of the new Star Trek: Into Darkness movie.

Or, much better known as 'J.J. Abrams' retelling of Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan' :)

I was completely in stitches at the end of the review. Couldn't agree more with this summary :D

2013-05-21 18:47:45 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

Saw a Google+ community promoting illegal/scam activity, wanted to report it. No report option anywhere. Google search didn't help find a way to report it either. Forget it.

Thanks, Google :)

2013-05-21 18:38:03 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

And for my first act, I'll be juggling flaming apples...

Nothing quite that dramatic, but when I resume vlogging later this or next week, I'll first be catching up on the changes since I last recorded a video (December 2011). For the second video I'll likely be touching upon the subject of responsibility by medical specialists, as it's a subject close to my heart as well as a major pet peeve.

There will be fireworks in some sense at least, and enough controversy to feed an army of FOX reporters/'analysts', that's for sure :D

2013-05-21 17:55:30 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

I really love the OST for Autumn Tale/Autumn in My Heart, a great Korean series.

If you ever get the chance, listen to the whole OST, and/or watch the whole series. You won't regret it :)

2013-05-21 17:30:33 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

The new XBox console was just unveiled.

Here's to the XBox Wii edition :D

(No, seriously, am I the only who thought it was a Wii for a moment?)

2013-05-21 09:45:33 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

An interesting hunting technique employed by orcas is that of ramming their prey at high speed in order to knock them out. Together with their excellent strategic capacities when hunting in a group makes it extremely difficult for any prey to escape.

In this photo series you can see how a dolphin suffers this fate. Despite being faster and more maneuverable than orcas, it gets hopelessly cut off from escape. After getting rammed by one of the orcas, its fate is sealed.

2013-05-21 09:40:25 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 10 +1s)

Anyone here knew that the original Star Wars movie sets were still around? They're to be found in Tunisia's desert, where they have stood abandoned for 35 years.

Fascinating pictures, that's for sure :)

2013-05-21 09:31:34 (8 comments, 3 reshares, 15 +1s)

Highschool student does a small oopsie during a chemistry experiment which produces a fair bit of smoke. No one is injured and no property is damaged.

Idiotic adults naturally overreact and have said HS student arrested for “possession/discharge of a weapon on school grounds” and “discharging a destructive device”. Charges which would have led to her finishing HS in prison.

It took a petition signed by 195,000 people across the US to have said charges dropped.

Here's to stupid 'adults' spoiling life for curious students.

2013-05-21 06:33:38 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

I must have missed this article before, but it's still awesome news.

When we can use our own DNA to create new buildings blocks for our own body, why shouldn't we do so? Within decades almost no one would have to be blind, deaf, paralyzed, or be missing a limb.

Science: improving lives one at a time :)

2013-05-20 20:28:07 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Here's a soggy Korean love song to end the day with :)

It's actually one of my favourite love ballads by a Korean vocalist :D

2013-05-20 19:15:51 (17 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Anyone have a clue as to why YouTube videos regularly have a habit of cutting off throughout the video?

Let's say I'm trying to watch a 15 minute video. When this issue occurs, it'll suddenly end the video after say 3 minutes. I reload the page and skip the point where it left off. It'll then play again until at say 8 minutes and cut off again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

When it ends the video, it'll say that the total playing time for the video is the time at which it cut off. This has happened so far across multiple systems, browsers and Flash version.

Google searches over the past months have not given me any hints why this might happen. It seems to occur almost randomly as well. I'll be able to watch twenty videos in a row without issues, then to have it fail like that on the next two.

2013-05-20 17:37:12 (17 comments, 2 reshares, 16 +1s)

Good overview on the issue of objectification of men and women in video games.

Brief summary, in video games women are always objectified, whereas men can also be objectified, but they are always idealized.

Idealization of male characters in video games isn't necessarily a bad thing, as they can show off desirable traits. Objectification of women, however, is a bad thing.

So don't do it. Okay?

2013-05-20 12:02:33 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 10 +1s)

The only song worthy of watching on this year's Eurovision song festival, as far as I'm concerned.

Great song, great act, lots of humour and nice transitions. This one's actually fun to watch and listen to :D

Best thing to come out of Greece in a while :)

2013-05-20 07:00:47 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 14 +1s)

Trained dolphins have discovered what is now the second remaining Howell torpedo, used by the US Navy in limited quantities during the late 19th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howell_torpedo

This early torpedo had only 50 copies made, as it was found to be unusable in practice. Its main failing was due to its flywheel-based propulsion. Having the flywheel spin at very high speeds was extremely noisy, making the torpedo very easy to pick up once launched. Preparing the torpedo for launch required a big installation as well.

Eventually the Howell torpedo was fully replaced with Whitehead torpedoes, whose successors are still being used today. Not with a straight success run, however. The Mark 14 torpedo was an unmitigated disaster during WWII, with at least four major failings making it an extremely unreliable torpedo.
... more »

2013-05-19 20:46:55 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Witness the sorry state Canadian conservative politicians are in, with Conservative Mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, caught on video smoking what appears to be illegal drugs.

Most amusing is that Ford is firmly denying that it is him on the video, that said video was faked and that he never had any involvement with any drug gangs.

2013-05-19 16:51:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

I just released build 2013-05-19 of WildFox. Most notable changes are the addition of history and auto-complete. Downloads are now also finally working :)

Please donate if you like what I'm doing :D

Changelog:
NEW:
- Added the OpenSSL libeay32 and ssleay32 DLLs to the Windows distribution.
- larger, auto-expanding search field in UI.
- save state of the bookmarks sidebar.
- Website icons next to bookmarks.
- History support. URL completion in address bar (start with protocol).
- Moved to Qt 5.1.

FIXED:
- F5 for reload isn't working.
- Downloads aren't working.

2013-05-19 11:34:07 (38 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

I find it both amusing and kind of sad that there are still Linux users who do not seem to pick up the reasoning behind me not providing Linux binaries of my projects.

Now, I could provide binaries aimed at version N.M of (X/K)Ubuntu, or Debian, or OpenSuSE, or... you get the point. I'd sooner waste my time on providing FreeBSD and NetBSD binaries, though. At least they don't come in a zillion different intriguing variations :)

2013-05-19 10:15:53 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

WildFox update: downloads are working now. Forgot to hand over the QNetworkReply pointer to the class doing the writing to disk. It's all working now :)

Just wrapping up a history-related dialogue and other tidbits before a release later today :)

2013-05-19 10:13:40 (12 comments, 11 reshares, 26 +1s)

Having been a 'male' programmer and now a female one, I can definitely agree with this article. It's amazing how much gender seems to matter in an area where it's only about your brain, not which genitals you have.

Back when I was supposedly male people around me seemed to find it normal for me to be intelligent, technical and capable. After changing gender roles, suddenly people seem amazed that I'm not an emotionally insecure, non-technical person, only thinking about make-up and making little babies.

The article also underlines the need to be just 'really good' at what we do as female programmers to show that we are capable. Just toughing it out, even when some dirty old guy is telling you how pretty you look and touching you a few times too often.

It's okay to take a shower after such a horrible experience, though :)

2013-05-19 10:03:30 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Spent a day trying to figure out why downloads weren't working in the browser I'm developing. This morning I figured out that I forgot to hand the network reply over to the class which writes the download to disk. One line of code later it's all working.

Yay, micro victory :D

2013-05-18 20:52:01 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

Today I finished implementing auto-complete in the address bar of the WildFox browser. Still needs some work later on to make it auto-complete on partial prefixes too. I.e. it has to search for the word being typed in the entire string.

Unfortunately this will knock down the super-efficient binary search to a linear search (O(N)) as every URL string will have to be examined in the entire model. That's why I'm hesitant to put in a non-optimized version.

I'm currently working on fixing the downloads feature as the last step towards a new release build. Stay tuned for a while. Nobody ever told me this feature was broken until I tested it myself, but I really think I should fix it now :)

Maybe there'll be a release tomorrow, if things work out.

2013-05-18 13:01:51 (9 comments, 1 reshares, 9 +1s)

Back in the 1970s the Soviets were working on their answer to Reagon's SDI program (AKA 'Star Wars'): a space-based laser.

They really did come close, with political pressure within the Soviet Union eventually leading to the demise of the Polyus-Skif laser-satellite project.

Rumours have it that the first module (Zarya) of the ISS as launched by the Russians was actually a spare part for this satellite program, or based on its blueprints.

An in-depth look at another way the Cold War could have turned uncomfortably warm in the 1980s.

2013-05-18 12:39:22 (9 comments, 2 reshares, 15 +1s)

Interesting experiment by Danish students. They tested whether cress plants would germinate and grow as well near a WiFi access pointer (router) as outside the range of one. As it turns out that within range of such an AP the cress didn't germinate at all, or only poorly.

It is reminiscent of an older experiment by the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, involving the effects of WiFi radiation on trees (http://m.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/wi-fi-radiation-killing-trees). Their conclusion was that WiFi radiation and such was downright killing said trees.

There's merit to this, of course. The type of EM radiation employed by WiFi, 3G, etc. falls under so-called ionizing radiation, which has been shown to disrupt cell divisions and other parts of a cell's regular operations.

I knew there was a reason why I always wire up my house with Cat-5e,... more »

2013-05-18 10:59:45 (13 comments, 3 reshares, 18 +1s)

The one thing I didn't really like about Facebook's layout was the irregular display of content in columns, each post starting at a different height. Having to jump between two columns like that is kind of confusing.

Leave it to Google to do the same on Google+, but with 3 columns, but sometimes putting in one big post spanning the entire width for additional confusing effect.

Guys... there's such a thing as 'human behaviour studies'. You may want to have a chat with some of those scientists. I hear they have done fascinating studies on how human beings perceive and process visual information.

Unless FB and G+ aren't aimed at humans, of course. In which case I'll just excuse myself right now.

2013-05-18 10:52:15 (27 comments, 8 reshares, 31 +1s)

2013-05-18 06:29:10 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Continuing the story of 'I used to wear everything super-sized', yesterday I finally bought a belt for my jeans which is actually my size: 85 cm (~33.5"). Even with it I'm still on hole 3 out of 5 :D

Looking back on other stuff I used to wear, I went from wearing size L t-shirts to XS/S, and far too large jeans (don't remember the size) to EU (DE/NL?) size 36 (27" waist/32).

Oh, and I didn't have to lose a single kg for it :D

2013-05-17 19:42:55 (3 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

I just began preparations on resuming work on my Viral Desire novel. This mostly consists out of reading the background material I wrote before, as well as the chapters so far to familiarize myself with the characters.

As I read back these chapters, mostly written back in 2009/2010, I'm finding myself quite impressed with how well the story flows. It really motivates me to finish this story so that the characters in it may finally find out what will happen to them, as even I do not know at this point :)

2013-05-17 19:40:06 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Today I'm having so many canker sores on the inside of my mouth that it's even painful to not move anything.

Hopefully taking it easy this weekend will help reduce their number, as I seem to get them mostly when I'm stressed.

2013-05-17 18:20:57 (15 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

Let's finally put to rest the myth that the scientific community is divided on whether the global warming we're experiencing is man-made or not. There is an over 97% consensus among climate scientists that it is in fact man-made.

Next up, how long it'll take for politicians to all revert to a state of not having their heads up their collective behinds and begin cooperating on tackling this issue on a global scale, as is required.

My guess is about 50-60 years, but I'm an optimist :)

2013-05-17 11:25:45 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

Awaiting delivery of video camera equipment next week. Expect a lot of ranting and controversy to follow.

2013-05-17 07:13:31 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 10 +1s)

Just wanted to say that I can not see any conceivable reason for using Core Data in iOS/OS X applications. All it does is lead to grief when you make any changes to the data model and you  have to migrate all the data to the new model. All too often by hand when the automatic migration fails.

Straight SQLite for the win :)

2013-05-16 18:12:24 (28 comments, 3 reshares, 26 +1s)

I'll be having a conversation by phone with a journalist from BBC World Service regarding a radio interview later today on Newshour.

They want to interview me about the case in South Carolina where the adoptive parents of an intersex child are suing three doctors and the state for carrying out surgery when the child was 16 months old to remove the male genitals.

I'll update this post as soon as I know more.

2013-05-16 13:37:02 (23 comments, 2 reshares, 12 +1s)

News flash: JJ Abrams says he never liked Star Trek, and always thought the show was too philosophical.

At least now I feel right about completely and utterly disliking the first and second Star Trek movie he directed. If he doesn't like Star Trek, I don't like his movies. Seems like a fair deal :)

2013-05-16 11:46:20 (7 comments, 1 reshares, 37 +1s)

Today is the first time in at least ten years time that I have actually put any money onto my savings account. I feel positively emotional at this... Wipes away a tear~

Maybe my life is actually improving for a change :)

2013-05-16 08:04:33 (4 comments, 3 reshares, 14 +1s)

After many attempts to create embryonic stem cells from an adult person's cells, it turns out that one of the missing ingredients to make it work was caffeine. Cue the usual caffeine jokes :)

The results of this breakthrough are likely to be perfect replacement organs and tissues for people in need of them without any fear of rejection. It would also eliminate the shortage of donor organs as the patient itself would be the donor.

One possible issue I can see is that at this point we still need eggs from women as the container for the patient's DNA. Hopefully we can soon create artificial eggs to solve this minor hurdle.

As for the moral and ethical aspects of this therapeutic cloning, it's unlikely that any of the embryos created using this method would ever be able to grow into a baby, and in the end it uses the patient's own tissues to save his or her life.... more »

2013-05-16 06:34:09 (10 comments, 1 reshares, 19 +1s)

Oh my, Google+ has a new notification widget. It seems to follow the Android app version, only it is even worse.

Hello Google? We have full-HD screens on our PCs and laptops these days. Why not allow us to make use of it? :)

Now we're poking at cramped text in small boxes with every post cut off after barely a sentence forcing one to click the 'Read more' link below it. Awesome.

2013-05-15 20:48:24 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

Just put an overview of the main novels I'm working on at the moment on the frontpage of my site :)

2013-05-15 19:28:34 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

スピツの「スパイダー」
Spitz - Spider

Just a good song :)