I have released DarkChannels 0.4.0. From now on, you can submit your own RSS feeds you would like to see included. They will be reviewed, and if suited, included in the RSS list. With this release, nearly all the functionality of the former XULchannels has been implemented.

Matt Fuller explains FreeBSD for Linux users : It's been my impression that the BSD communit{y,ies}, in general, understand Linux far better than the Linux communit{y,ies} understand BSD. I have a few theories on why that is, but that's not really relevant. I think a lot of Linux people get turned off BSD because they don't really understand how and why it's put together. Thus, this rant; as a BSD person, I want to try to explain how BSD works in a way that Linux people can absorb.



Read also his other rants, like Why Windows causes stupidity.

The snapshot on the right shows the goblin Trellic, a beautifully crafted new years gift from my niece Alexia. Sitting on a moss covered log, he overlooks our house like it's his own. I tried to lookup his race in the D&D Monster Manual, but could find any monster resembling him. I guess the little critter either is a mini orc, troll, goblin or gnome.

I've already located the most beautifull site of 2004 : yesterday, Bush anounced manned missions to the moon again. Whoever is not convinced about missions to the moon, really should have a look at some panorama''s of the moon, taken by different astronauts of the Apollo missions. Check out the rest of the Moonpans.com site !

Space is cool again. You may want to build a scale model of your favorite spacecraft while you have the chance.

The American Marsrover had more change than the European one, the Beagle2, for it's landing on Mars. The first color images are available; you might also check out the 360 degrees panorama that was published on APOD. More Mars news on Martian Soil or AstroBlog (in dutch).




As the excitement over the successful Spirit landing and the first images from Mars settles down, scientists are already thinking about where to go exploring, once Spirit leaves the lander craft next week. One nearby depression dubbed Sleepy Hollow is of particular interest.




NASA has released Maestro, a public version of the primary software tool used by scientists to operate the Mars Exploration Rovers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Anyone can download Maestro for free from mars.telascience.org and use it to follow along with the rovers' progress during the mission. You can use Maestro to view pictures from Mars in 2D and 3D and create simplified rover activity plans. During the mission, updates will be released for Maestro containing the latest images from Mars.

I have a new telescope ! I bough myself this 20cm Dobson telescope, a large improvement on my current 114mm scope. Astronomy has been such a pleasant hobby throughout the last years, that I decided to gear up my equipment. I doubted between the Dobson, and a parallactical based 200mm Newton, but the point of portability was too important : I need to carry around the scope easily, and such a big Newtonian scope just needs a fixed place. I just got a change to test the Dobson, and the results are promising : in very bad conditions (very bright moon, misty weather), the telescope shows stars of magnitude 11, which is the best result I got from my 114mm Newton. M35 reveals itself as a jewel twinkling in the Gemini constellation. Anyway, if you are interested in a second-hand 114mm telescope, just let me know ;)

Just seen ROTK; the movie really is as good as everyone says. I enjoyed every minute of it, especially the scenes with the mamukal, and with Shelob. Only I had expected a more frightening spider, now she only resembled a normal spider in closeup. The last 20 minutes are indeed a bit long, but 20 minutes in 10+ hours is a fraction. Now let's hope the Extended DVD sets do appear quite soon.

The last 3 weeks have been very fruitfull in finding some very good CD''s; my last CDs are :

• Strategies III double CD, by Einsturzende Neubauten


• Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain Soundtrack by Yann Tierssen


• Collective Box Set (3 CD set) by Clock DVA


• Music for a Jilted Generation, the Prodigy


• Various MCD's of the Prodigy

I still don't get it why the online MP3 music shops are so successfull : people can download a song for 1$, so if you count an average of 10 to 15 songs per CD, that's 15$, what the exact price is of a CD ! So people buy online music, that is as expensive as music on a 'real' CD, *but* in a heavily compressed and therefore quite low-quality form. That's right, people, MP3 music is mutilated audio ! It doesn't even get near the quality of a CD, and is much more comparable with the quality of audio tapes/cassettes.

I have released DarkChannels 0.3.0, which contains the following modifications :

• Sorted RSS channels by last message


• Added RSS channel info in overview


• More layout changes


• Extra run at 1 pm; DarkChannels is now updated at 7 am, 1 pm and 7 pm (Central European Time)