Life as a future father is filled with anticipation and change. Suddenly you feel the urge to protect your family, but how do you protect your loved ones as an IT professional???
Well, that is of course easy, you get a big gun!
Sometimes a solution to a problem is so obvious and so simple that it is astonishing and makes you doubt whether the solution is real or you’re having a strange dream. This solution occurred during our adventure with the house of the richest man in the world. After contacts with our landlord, the local police and even a letter to Ingvar himself, we thought of a creative solution.
It was very easy. We bought a bamboo mat and hammered it against an open wall. This was a type of wall that allowed the homeless to see into our home and allowed us to see the homeless. The bamboo mat blocked all vision that both parties had. We placed some plants against the mat so have a visually pleasing effect.
The result: One day later the homeless person was gone. His old place was cleaned up and the nuisance was ended. There was another homeless living near the pool but this one we cannot see or notice, so we don’t mind. Problem solved.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the euro coin a design content has been started to get the new design of a future commemorative coin. All citizens of Europe can participate and if you present the best design of the 731 million potential participants you win a set of coins and of course some honor. You have two more weeks because the design needs to be submitted in the 20th of May.
The design needs to be related/inspired by the 10 year existence of the euro, but the number 10 cannot be used. Using the number 10 would be confusing when you need to determine the value of the coin. A 2 euro coin with a 10 on it could easily be used to rip off non Europeans, and that should of course be avoided. It’s also prohibited to use any written text on the coin.
I’m going to have a brainstorm session about this theme this weekend, and maybe I’ll try my luck with a simple design.
Lantarenpalen, electriciteitskastjes, verkeerslichten, reclamezuilen. In Spanje is het normaal dat je op allerlei plekken berichten aantreft waarin iemand zijn diensten aanbied. Dit zijn zaken als taalles (engels, duits, italiaans, etc.), lessen in een muziekinstrument (piano, fluit, gitaar, viool, etc.), iemand die zich aanbied voor schoonmaak werkzaamheden, oppassen op kinderen of ouderen, klusjesmannen, etc.
Meestal zijn dit velletjes papier waarvan je aan de onderkant een telefoonnummer kan afscheuren. Dit nummer bel je dan om in contact te komen met de aanbieder van de dienst.
Vandaag trof ik op internet een erg vermakelijke variant van zo’n persoonlijke reclame uiting aan. Het betreft het nummer ‘Hello’ van Lionel Richy, maar dan in reclame formaat, compleet met afscheurbare stukjes uit zijn liedje (pdf).
Ik vond dit gelijk een erg leuke manier om een onbekende een glimlach te bezorgen. Ik heb er eentje geprint en deze opgehangen bij mij in de buurt.
The most stunning think about La Gomera was the beautiful nature we encountered. Ancient forests with Laresilva trees and a huge amount of walking routes crisscrossing the island. In the forest we could at times clearly see the horizontal rain. These are clouds that are hanging low over a track in which you can see the wind moving. The wind makes the little drops in the clouds move horizontally of even upwards.
A lot of the mountains contained lots of terraces. These were created by the old Gomerians to cultivate all kinds of plants. Surely this must have been a lot of work. Still at times you can see banana trees, potatoes or grapes in some places, but the vast majority of terraces is not being used any more. The locals must have moted that working for the tourists is much more profitable than working with plants. A sad loss of tradition, but very good for providing beautiful imagery.
The boat trip to the island was like a roller coaster ride. I enjoyed it a lot, but Ana was less pleased with the trip. To see a typically shaped cliff you needed to get another boat trip to have the best view, but this was out of the question after our experiences arriving at the island. Anyway, there were really a lot of these typically shaped rocks visible all over the island.
In my photo album you can find some more images of our trip to La Gomera.
Next weekend we will be traveling again, and this time were visiting the island La Gomera for a weekend. La Gomera is one of the Canary Islands that was still missing on my list.
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El Hierro |
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Fuerteventura |
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Gran Canaria |
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La Gomera |
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La Palma |
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Lanzarote |
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Tenerife |
The island is difficult to reach. First we need to take the ferry to Tenerife, and from Tenerife continue to La Gomera in a different Ferry. We were lucky because the the schedules connect pretty well, and we get a 50% discount on the fare for being Canarian citizens.
La Gomera promises to be a nice place to visit. The island offers a lot of nature, the Garajonay National Park. Also there is a typical rock face, Los Organos, that resembles a kind of organ.
In La Gomera that have a lot of local delicacies. Local cheeses, roasted pig or goat, honey from palm trees and this is the place where almogrote was invented!
It is the only place in the world where the inhabitants were forced to develop a unique language. A whistle-ing language called
Silbo Gomero (Gomerian whistle). The local population communicated with whistles covering great distances. It proved the easiest way to quickly pass information over the ravines. Of course I’m planing to do some whistling myself. If I make a mistake there is still no problem. The receiver of any error will surely be far far away at the other end of a ravine.
Vandaag weer langs het ziekenhuis geweest voor een check om te zien of alles goed is met onze Pek.
Alles bleek gelukkig in orde, en de vriendelijke arts maakte van onze afspraak gebruik om ons gelijk de 4D mogelijkheden van het echo apparaat te demonstreren.
De 4 dimensies die we te zien kregen waren breedte, hoogte, diepte en tijd. Op de fotos ontbreekt uiteraard het tijdsaspect, maar toch blijft het indrukwekkend.
De voorlopige statistieken:
· 21 centimeter
· 319 gram
· 20 weken en 3 dagen
· hij heeft mijn grote teen
After a long wait finally all the pieces are falling into place. I expect I will be able to finish the game soon. As always the final details and polishing up take the most time. Last month I already introduced the entire cast of the game. I also showed you one of the specials you can find in the game. The rest I leave for you to find out playing the game.
I enjoyed creating this game a lot. It is my first Android program, and it was very useful for me to get some hands-on with this new media, and with programming for mobile devices. I expect the announcement for this new game ‘Cats and Dogs’ to appear on this blog, and the android store, somewhere in the next few months.
Meer en meer gebruiken we de computer alleen om een verbinding te leggen met het internet. Mail checken, bankzaken regelen, betalingen, bellen, videobellen, eventjes iets opzoeken, muziek beluisteren, films kijken, series downloaden, een boek lezen, een recept nakijken.
Wat nog ontbrak voor mij was een harde schijf die ik overal kan gebruiken. Ik stuurde wel eens bestanden naar mijn eigen email, zodat ik ze altijd bij de hand had, maar het kan toch gemakkelijker. Met Dropbox kan je gratis een harddiskje van 2GB maken, die je vanaf een willekeurige plek kan benaderen. Zelfs vanaf je smartphone!.
En extra leuk is dat je met allerlei zaken extra diskruimte kan verdienen. De tutorial doorlopen is goed voor 250MB extra. Zorgen dat iemand anders zich aanmeld via een referentie zorgt er ook voor dat de nieuwe persoon en ikzelf 250MB erbij krijgen. Erg goed bedacht.
The situation with our ‘neighbors‘ is still the same and has not improved. Myself and my pregnant wife are getting more and more annoyed by the situation and by the lack of action undertaken by the parties involved.
It was my idea to send a letter to the owner of the property where the homeless were staying but it proved difficult to find the address of the world richest person, Ingvar. I did found out he had a foundation called INGKA that is under his supervision and that controls all administrative affairs of IKEA. A foundation that is actually located in the Netherlands. To this foundation I sent the following letter.
Dear Ingvar Kamprad or representative,
Although you will surely not know me, I would like to introduce myself shortly and address an issue that effects us both. My name is Adrie Berg, and I live in Las Palmas. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting you, we are in fact neighbors. I live next door to your property in the ‘Lope de Vega’ street. We have in fact been neighbors for the last 3 years that I live in Las Palmas even though no-one lived on your property during that time.
The view of my window is over your backyard and the small path you take to enter the backyard. The access to your garden is blocked by a big iron garden door. Sadly, the last few month my home is troubled by some homeless people that have taken refuge in your backyard. These homeless are demanding that we are quiet from around 7 o’clock at night because they leave the house around 6:30 in the morning. As a result my wife is uncomfortable in using the balcony of our own home.
We have talked to the police, but they will not act until the homeless person inflicts physical harm. We have also contacted the agency whose phone number appears on the building, but they don’t really seem to care about the situation.
My wife is pregnant and this raises concern and we would like to address this situation. My suggestion is that you either fix and sell the property which is in a beautiful area, or assign someone to take care of the property. If you want I can take care of this task, but you will need to provide me with some way to enforce my power over the property to remove the homeless, and make the property livable.
Please inform me that you will take appropriate steps the resolve this situation and feel free to contact me with any doubts or questions you might have.
Kind regards,
Adrie Berg
The question is whether this letter will ever be seen by the right person. I have my doubts and suspect it will end up unread in the trash but it doesn’t hurt to try.