Why chaos scares me

Today, as I traveled home from Groningen (about 2 hours public transportation - twice a day. I'll be happy when I get a room in Groningen) I was thinking about the Oh My Gods comic I finished reading up a couple of days ago. Life as a paganist seems so attractive to me, and yet I don't start celebrating my new found faith and in stead study it as if it was an interesting scientific subject. I'm more like the Gardnerians the comic makes fun off: move the wrong way during a ritual and you scream murder. While I wondered why that was, I figured it came down to order and chaos. I'm not a control-freak and I can't say that I'm even closely to well organised, so you'd think I've grown to like chaos, wouldn't you? Wrong! You see, during my highschool years it happened frequently that I got in trouble for forgetting or not even hearing about dates in the first place. It has happened on accoasion that I asked blankly why everyone was moving the benches in a calss to find out we were having an important test scheduled months ago. So I've allways had to rely on routine: writing stuff down immediately before I forget - making nicely formatted to do lists (and I'd still miss dates, even though they were in my calendar, and I never finsihed even 10% on any to-do list). And so now I have an urge to know exactly what I'm suposed to do, where, when and how, before I get started, as to make sure I don't forget anything. I feel I can't be too well prepared before I take even the slightest step forward. And this keeps me from making any step forward.

Now I find myself with a new goal: to clear out my inhibitions and learn once again to be spontaneous. To forget to plan, and just make it up as I go along.

My hometown

My Home town of Aldtsjerk

I'm trying out Picasa's BlogThis feature, and so far it seems a good feature to me. The image to your left, also available on my homepage and various wiki's, is the Frisian township of Aldtsjerk, my birthplace and current adres. The image was released to public non-commercial use by the owner: (Trynwalden online). Trynwalden is a handfull of towns. Legend has it a woman named Tryntsje had seven (or five, I can't remember) sons, who each started a farm that later grew into a village. Our town was supposedly founded by Âlde (Old one). You see that wide stretch of water? That is the Aldtsjerkster mar, an important feature in the Elfstedentocht, one of Friesland's best known ice skating events. The highway surrounding half our town connects Leeuwarden to Dokkum, two of the largest Frisian cities. This picture was taken several years ago.

 

Google as the propelling force of internet in our time

Every day I visit a handfull of sites, some forums, email, etc.. Among these is my personalised Google homepage that lists a number of feeds, along with the content listing of my Gmail inbox, and the Google search field. Some other feeds that don't update so regularly are watched by my Google desktop search sidebar, along with my system performance, again my email, the latest news and somthing Google calls: what's hot (as I understand it, they check which news stories are most frequently visited and discussed). The sidebar also has a small pane for my Gtalk agent, but I haven't added any other users yet, so it's isn't really active. Almost every day, I type the character g into my Opera adress bar followed by some search terms and 9 out of 10 times I find what I need immediately on Google search. At least once a week, I check in to Google Labs to see what they've come with now. As you can see, I've made ample use of Google's enormous amounts of offered services.

But it seems I'm not alone in taking such an active interest in Google. It seems to me that every day when I check the Tech news feed on my Google homepage, Google itself is mentioned. Building a research park for NASA, providing San Francisco with free Wi-Fi internet, trying to scan books and upload them, an so on and so forth. A sutdent journalist could easily write his thesis on how Google has developed over the past few years.

So what is it that makes Google so special? I'll just come out and say what I think is the unmentioned, underground reason they've accumulated users in such enormous ammounts: they're free (hold in mind I'm Dutch). They don't distort their pages with huge ammounts of advertising (they're very discreet with their adverts) and yet they never charge anything. Frnkly I'm stumped how they can afford to provide SF with free internet access and build a research park for NASA and provide millions of users with their services without having to charge anyone anytime. And the other thing is: they work. Most free stuff you get on the web is mediocre at best. Google Earth for example could easily be sold at $50 a copy, but they don't. Most of all, they're centralised. Once you know where to look (Google's own site could use some more accesabillity) you can see Google's dozens of services in one or two pages.

But there is also a more idillic side to Google. Their mission statement "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" is well known to those that watch the news. Could anyone for example tell me if Yahoo or Microsoft have a similar statement? And Google seems to live up to their promise. I for me think their search engine is now almost indespensible to keep the internet halfway organised. When I worked for Wikinews, my standard approach to each story I worked on was to first of all search it on Google news, which allways yielded results. As I said earlier, Google has become part of my daily internet routine.

But whenever I hear that statement, it reminds me of another statement: "The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an international non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge." Here are two compatible goals, those of Google and of the Wikipedia. I'm not the only one who has noticed. I know for a fact there have been plans for collaborations between Google and wikimedia, including Google providing them with server bandwith, of which there is a chronical shortage in the rapidly growing wikimedia projects. Any other plans of collaboration may be unclear, but would not be surprising to many people.

Some reference to the strugle between Microsoft and Google almost as a strugle between good and evil (evil of course being the monopolist evil emprie Microsoft). The classic epic facedown of the two great rivals promises to be an interesting battle. What I find interesting when comparing the two, is the similarities in how the companies were founded: Windows (even DOS at first) and the Google search engine: great innovative ideas that had massive potential and appeals to millions, probably even billions of users worldwide. The difference is what happened next. While Google framed it's new found power in a idealistic goal, Bill Gates went corporal. It's difficult not seeing the world's richest man, in charge of a company that has the monopoly and isn't afraid to use it, to milk it for every cent it's got, as the classic evil villain, sitting in his mansion laughing and saying: "Soon the world shall belong to me!". And then comes Google: concepted, developed and run by intelligent but uncharismatic nerds. In a feat of unexpected growth, these underdogs rise to the challenge of defeating the megalomaniac. If only the reality were such a simple, black and white world.

Google is one of the greatest things to have happened to the internet since its inception. It has inspired by its efforts discussion, innovation and growth. Therefor I see it as one of the greatest sources of forward motion on the net today. It gives corporates, such as Yahoo and Microsoft, a run for their money, forcing them to be better, faster, cheaper. No matter who might win in the end, if any, the race will have been enough to give internet a decent launch in to the 21st century.

7 reasons I like Opera

Here's some reasons why I like the Opera browser. Some may say I'm advertising, but let them talk. Those of us who have experienced this browser know better.

1 Fast - And I really mean fast. When they say it's Earth's fastest browser, I believe them. Beating IE is nothing, beating Netscape is something. Beating Firefox et alii is an amazing feat.
2 Mouse gestures - I don't know how many other browsers incorporate them. It's simple. You hold down your right mouse button (provided you're right handed) and make gestures to tell the browser what to do. Go left: Go back one page. Right: go forward. Down and right: close this page. Hold right and use scroll button: quickly alternate between windows (Opera uses tabbed browsing). This probably saves me 10 seconds out of every minute in clicking, alternating and looking up bookmarks.
3 Voice - I don't use it for pages I visit every day (I use mouse gestures for those), but once you have it all programmed in it's very simple not having to go through bookmarks or trying to remember an URL but simply saying: Hotmail, and have the thing take you to the inbox (I use Gmail now, so I don't check hotmail by hand much anymore).
4 Searching - Want something of download.com? Simply type w followed by your search terms. Wanna google? Add g in front of the terms. It's really safes me a major head-ache, since I tend to use Google a lot.
5 RSS and Mail - Though I don't use Opera for my Mail, but I could if I wanted to. And the built-in RSS helps keep track of websites and Blogs. Maybe it's pretty standard for a browser nowadays, but I still think it's neet.
6 Sidebar - I keep forgetting proper CSS syntax for borders, padding and the like. I simply hit F4 and up pops this little screen from the left hand of my browsers, displaying all kinds of handy tools including a CSS testing tool.
7 Auto-resume - Not only downloads (which is probably standard unless you use IE), but also my sessions can be auto restored. Pretty handy when I'm in the middle of something and I accidentally close the window or it crashes. Next time I open it I'm right back where I left off.

Those of you who have chosen the way of some other browser and those of you who follow the renown gaining Firefox cult: if you think your browser can do better than this, let me know. Otherwise come to terms with the error of your ways. Those of you still using IE: in time you'll understand why you can't go on like this. It's slow, unsecure, messy and just not as usefull as other browsers.