Really left Rotterdam
Today I handed in the keys to my appartment in Rotterdam!
On inspection, everything was found to be ok, and I was even able to sell my carpets for a couple hundred euros.
By the way, I did sell my two couches in the past weeks. I didn’t get as much for them as I had wanted, but anything is better than nothing…
WW-uitkering
The past two weeks I have taken a “vacation” to do the unpacking here in my new home. This week we finally got our new bookcases for the study. Up till then, all my books were just piled up on the floor. Now I can finally find most of my stuff back again…
Today I visited the CWI (centre for work and income) to request a “WW-uitkering” (unemployment benefit). Starting today, I will be looking for a job and I will have to apply for a job at least once a week. (Apparently, I should have started with that weeks ago already, so I will probably be cut down on my payments. But hey, I didn’t know that! Nobody told me anything!)
Moved
Yesterday, we rented a moving van from Budget Rent a Car. We ordered a “VC” class van (check out the website), but instead we got a “VEL” class van (an Iveco Daily to be precise), which is a lot larger, and (oh, boy!) has an electric tail lift! (The last time we rented a van from Budget, the same thing happened. Do you think it’s policy?)
Anyway, almost all my stuff fitted in there, like a large desk, two beds, several closets and a load of boxes. I’m not moving much furniture, because we already have a completely furnished house in Zeeland. I’ve been able to sell my dining room table and chairs, a side table and a couple of other things. However, I’m still stuck with my two couches – nobody seems to want those.
Unemployed
As of today, I am jobless…
Well, I’ll be busy packing at home, because I am planning to move sometime next week. I am moving to Zeeland, in the southwest of the Netherlands. My wife already lives there, so, since I am now no longer bound to Delft, because of my job, I can finally move in with her…
Final day @ TU Delft
Today, August 31, is the final day of my contract as a PhD student in Delft.
As of tomorrow, I am unemployed…
Yes, of course, I still have to work on my PhD thesis, but I’ll have to do that in my free time. And next week, I’ll be moving home, so not much free time left then.
I’m not sure when and how often I will be back in Delft, I’ll just have to see.
It’ll be pretty weird.
Since September 1995, I have been here at Delft University. First college, then in 2000 my Master’s project at the Computer Graphics Group, and since September 1st, 2001, my PhD project at the same group.
That’s 36% of my entire lifetime I’ve spent here…
Well, I guess it’s time for something completely different.
You’ll hear from me. Benjamin, signing off from Delft….
User manual translation
This afternoon, we got a nice little package in the mail.
Because we ordered ADSL a few weeks ago, we received a free MP3 player. Nothing special, some unknown brand, but still a very nice, 256 MB MP3 player.
That’s not what this entry is about, however. It’s about the user manual…
It seems to me that the manual has been translated from Chinese, via Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, to French, then Russian, back to Chinese, Korean and finally to English. Let me quote (yes, literally) from the manual:
Not need to drive the USB dish function
need not to manage the procedure, can pass the “my computer “directly “can move dish” proceed the document operate, having no need in WIN2000 above system gearing the procedure
Encrypt the dish mode
make use of with the supplementary tool in machine, can be direct to divide the dish as two dishes, combine to encrypt an among those, conceal the space, keep to encrypt the part not been seen from, but conceal the secret
recording/reply to read
can pass the microphone recording and keep to WAV and ACT speech text file of the format, the eligibility chooses the part replies to read or contrast to reply to read
Boycott Internet Explorer
My advice is simple: Boycott IE. It’s a cancer on the Web that must be stopped. IE isn’t secure and isn’t standards-compliant, which makes it unworkable both for end users and Web content creators.
(…)
You can turn the tide by demanding more from Microsoft and by using a better alternative Web browser. I recommend and use Mozilla Firefox, but Apple Safari (Macintosh only) and Opera 8 are both worth considering as well.
I totally agree with Paul Thurrott, I couldn’t say it any better myself.
(From Slashdot.)
Why I use Jabber
This is the reason I don’t use MSN Messenger!
Read through the comments of this blog entry (in Dutch)… Are these people for real?!?
Google Moon
After Google Maps and Google Earth, Google today introduced Google Moon.
In honour of the first lunar landing, on July 20, 1969, we can now surf the Moon’s surface and explore the landing sites of the Apollo missions. (Courtesy of NASA, of course.)
Don’t forget to check out the highest detail images!
The code of Carl Munck
If you’re interested in history and ancient monuments like Stonehenge or the pyramids, and you like fiddling around with numbers, take a look at this site.
It’s about coordinates of these monuments, ancients weights and measures, mathematical constants, and even “monuments on Mars”, such as the famous “Face on Mars”. There are all kinds of relations between all these numbers, or at least – we are led to believe that. It sounds all a bit too far-fetched, if you ask me…
Search
Categories
- Computing (64)
- Funny (38)
- Interesting (11)
- Leisure (38)
- Movies (12)
- Personal (74)
- Photography (10)
