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Elger December 30th, 2009

I just finished mixing together a fine selection of Happy Hardcore tunes. Happy Hardcore from around 1996, in the Netherlands, so not UK Happy Hardcore. Preventing myself from playing track you might not know, I selected a lot of popular ones; which makes mixing difficult since most of them are 3-minute radio edits. But I made it trough perfectly, given some clashing melodies minor glitches. The mixing is better than the previous set; tighter and, in the end, even with some minor scratching and fiddling. Follow the stitch liveshows on twitter: http://twitter.com/stitchliveshow

What will the track selection for next week hold?

Total playing time: 1.12.44

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Filesize: 166.5 MB, 320 kbit.

Tracklist

1. Dune – Hardcore Vibes (South Bound Mix)
2. Tokyo Ghetto Pussy – I Kiss Your Lips (Club Mix)
3. DJ Paul Elstak – Luv u More (Extended)
4. DJ Paul Elstak – Rainbow in the sky (K&A’s Extended Mix)
5. Nakatomi – Free
6. 2 Brothers On The 4th Floor – Mirror of Love
7. DJ Weirdo & DJ Sim – Pump That Stupid Bass (Happy Rave Mix)
8. Back 2 Bass – I Wanna Be WIth You
9. Pulp Shock – Far Away
10. Critical Mass – Believe In The Future (Extended Version)
11. T.O.T.T. – Get Up (Airplay Edit)
12. Human Resource – Dominator ’96
13. Music Instructor – Hymn (Go Down Mix) (Extended)
14. Dune – Million Miles From Home (Video Mix)
15. Rave Religion – C’Mon And Touch Me
16. Lipstick – I’m a Raver
17. Nakatomi – Children Of the Night
18. Party Animals – Have You Ever Been Mellow
19. Party Animals – Aquarius
20. Too Fast For Mellow – Get My Love
21. Wonderland – Be On A Star (Radio Mix) {death-star for you and me?}
22. Scooter – Friends
23. Lovechild – All Out of Love
24. Technohead – I Wanna Be a Hippy (Flamman & Abraxas Radio Mix)
25. Rob Gee – Xtc, You Got What I Need
26. Technohead – I Wanna Be A Hippy (Dano No Sweat Mix)

Tags: 1996, Happy, Happy Hardcore, live, mix

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Elger December 25th, 2009

Enjoy your christmas, the feast of light. To you, this is my card. (high-res version)

May the light shine upon you.

Tags: 2009, card, christmas, cliche, decoration, merry, windows, zapf dingbats

• inspiration , photoshop , pictures
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Elger December 23rd, 2009

To celebrate the glorious upgrade of my dj skills, I started the Stitch Liveshow; A (bi-)weekly show that will contain about one hour of music. This first episode contains my favorite Drum & Bass releases from past weeks. Since the tracks are selected according to my likings, its actually Drum & Bass & Melodies. Enjoy the great tracks, and the decent mixing. I actually felt the vibe halfway of the mix… can’t wait for the new one! Enjoy!

Total playing time: 1.18.14 (and yes, it even fits on cd!)

Download

• uber fast Download: right click, save as. (sponsored by: vexocide.org)
• regular fast Mirror: right click, save as.

Filesize: 179.2 MB, 320 kbit.

Tracklist

1. Lovebirds – Green (I Feel this Mix) [Urban Symphonies]
2. Motta – Imagination Feat msdos (Original Mix) [Desperate Luv EP]
3. Dose and Blackplanet – Man The Weather [Fokuz Limited (FKZLTD021)
4. Syncopix - Stay In Touch [Spearhead (SPEAR027)]
5. Breaksense – Everyday (Original Mix) [Changing World Everyday]
6. Netsky – I Refuse [Spearhead (SPEAR029)]
7. Human Factor – Sensation [Liquid Allsorts Drum and Bass Vol 1 (Unmixed)]
8. Syncopix – Girl Talk (Original Mix) [Urban Symphonies] [Recommended]
9. Mutated Forms – Should I [Liquid Allsorts Drum and Bass Vol 1 (Unmixed)]
10. Netsky – Midnight Express [Spearhead (SPEAR029)]
11. Soulmatic – Hold Me [Intrinsic (INTRINSIC013)]
12. KG – Runaway [Viper VIP (VPRVIP011)] [Recommended]
13. Ultimate C – Side by Side [Basswerk Files 032]
14. Soulmatic – Going Deep Down [Intrinsic (INTRINSIC013)]
15. The Ceremony (VIP) – S.I.N. [Eesti Drum n Bass Vol3]
16. Ultimate C – Behind the Sorrow [Basswerk Files 032]
17. End User – Stillness (Re-Edit) [Left Mixes And Edits]
18. Ketz – Red Planet (Original Mix) [Digital Pot 13]

I’m currently applying for an iTunes affiliation program; soon you can directly buy the songs mentioned.

Tags: 2009, dj, dj stitch, drum & bass, liveshow, melody, mix

• live , mixing , music , stitch
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Elger December 22nd, 2009

Ow wow, there is some snow in the Netherlands! Whoohoo! Snow! The thing we missed in its current glorious proportions. Unfortunately, snow brings also some inconveniences; plans get ruined since roads are danger zones and rail fails.

National news channels are first-posting each other with the increasing amount of broken trains and tracks. They build a scenery of an entire country disappointed and angry at the train service. RTL 7 says “Criticism towards prorail increases”. Then you see people complaining, such as a guy from traveler organization Rover; “It’s very bad, the first day is okey, but this is unacceptable“; or something along those lines.

Critique?

Now RTL 7 is the one claiming the critique is rising; but shows no evidence. We hear an opinion of a guy with big words and see some disappointed travelers; thats all. This is called “Complaining“; especially the content of Rover.

Critique has some foundation and can be used to build on. An example of constructive criticism: “The elevators on the station are broken; they should be fixed. In the meantime we should just try to help each other out. Maybe the NS should help out with extra personnel aside from the ones that provide information and security.”

RTL 7 is also complaining about the lack of traveling information and the fogginess of this information. My visit to the station today was the most clarifying one yet. Here is why: 1: NS attendants walk around to answer the same questions over and over again. 2: Intercoms continuously tell what trains leave at what tracks. 3: Travelers also get information of why their train doesn’t leave; and what is broken. And there is abundant information on the Internet; 4: The NS website informs about the trains that don’t leave. 5: The site advices to not travel by train. Missing out all these sources is incredibly hard, but possible. In this case: put some effort in it and look for it!

My experience

My personal experience of traveling by train saturday, today and yesterday is positive. The service level at stations is good; travelers even get free coffee and tea (and cappuccino!). Last night I couldn’t return home; a malfunctioning track blocked all traffic between Arnhem and Zutphen. This has been fixed last night. Think about this; people getting up in the middle of the night, in freezing cold, to fix a railroad track! Especially for me! That’s just awesome!

The atmosphere on the stations was very friendly. People are unionized, bonding, and possibly yesterday night has been the start of a few new relationships. There was no air of complaint or something like that, but there was some slight confusion about the train schedule; nothing worth mentioning on a national newscast.

Conclusion

There is something positive about this “critique”! If the common consensus tells prorail should better their service, they would likely get the means to do so! In this sense bad coverage is good for politics! So, please complain more! Maybe this could even expand our export of railway systems abroad!

All in all: RTL 7′s news item about the trains in this snowy weather is sensational, flat and cheap. The only value was in the comment of the prorail speaker. “We could choose to cancel all trains, or have a light service; we chose the latter“.

Enjoy your trip, and look outside: SNOW!

Tags: arguments, cheap, fail, firstpost, media, ns, prorail, rise to anger, rltz, rtl, rtl7

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Elger December 20th, 2009

In 2010, on 16/17 January, there will be the Eth0:2010 Winter edition. Eth0 is a socially oriented gathering of friendly geeks, girls and technology in the outer regions of the Netherlands. See link at the bottom for more info.

I just purchased a ticket. Due to some awesomeness in my head, i’ve got Eric Cartman screaming around with the text “i’ve got a golden ticket, i’ve got a golden ticket”. So I decided to pimp up the ticket; with a subtle gold touch. In the end everything was gold-plated to give it that extra feel. Shoop da woop.

Original

Pimped

Unfortunately the qcode doesn’t work anymore.

See also

• Eth-0:2010 Winter Edition
• Photoshop Gold Tutorial

Tags: Eth0, gold, photoshop, shoop

• Eth0 , Fun , photoshop , relaxing
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Elger December 17th, 2009

Time to buy some lottery tickets. But which one to buy? In case you’re wondering, I bought all of them. Thats right: I bought from each lottery exactly one ticket. This resulted in small stack of paper, promising a chance of beautiful (and not so beautiful prizes). What does a lottery ticket mean? How big are the chances of winning? And what tickets should you buy? Here is your chance to find out.

Looks

The value of a lottery ticket is reflected in the design and paper-size. More expensive tickets use more paper and look prettier. In this case the most appealing one is the Half-a-million ticket. This one uses holographic reflecting diamonds; giving the paper the feel of being something more valuable then just paper. Other appealing tickets are 40×1.000.000 but most noticeably the December calendar; which is in the style of an advent calendar. The gallery below are the actual tickets I bought in November.

Jackpots

Suppose I’m a lucky man… The chance of that happening isn’t one to speak of, but my greed and imagination does wish to think it happens. In case all tickets are winning ones, the sum of money would be 1.927.000 euros from Krasloten and 27.5 million from Staatsloterij.

But okey, let’s be realistic. Winning is nice, but that doesn’t make it profitable; is there any chance of gaining some profit?

Calculations

Dutch lottery companies are required to publish the prize-schemes and all associated data to the public. So, what is the chance of winning something that is of higher value than the ticket itself? I call this the “Chance of Profit”. Another valuable number is the “Change of Jackpot”; this is the percentage of winning the jackpot. Since the odds are so small, the more commercial value “Tickets per Jackpot” is added. The state lottery is very obscure about its numbers unfortunately; it does however publish its balance sheet.

* Total number of tickets for the new-years lottery is 34.2 * 100.000. Other complexities such as 1/5th tickets might or might not be part of that number. The chance to win depends on sales. This article uses a sales percentage of 100%.

So, with this knowledge in the back of my head, it’s time to start scratching. Scratch scratch…

Scratchy

Before my thumbs started to bleed I found a guilder (dutch coin) for scratching. In total I won €10 on the half-a-million and a free ticket on a 7-klapper.

Conclusion

A few years ago i dreamt that when I had a lottery, I would massively increase the chance of winning a substantial amount of money. This day has happened with the introduction of the 40 x 1.000.000! This one has the highest chance of passing the magical boundary of becoming a ‘millionaire’. Even though the actual prize is 710.000, it’s still the best chance to win a substantial amount of money.

The most exciting lot to open was the Mega Cash; it has the most numbers to look for and a lot of rows that could contain your winning number. Scratching them open without revealing the prize also increases the tension. For the amount of play value, this is the best one. This one also has the highest percentage of profit.

While the chance to win a lot of money on the 40 x 1.000.000 is high, its also a very dull ticket. There is only one area to scratch open; this reveals a code. Checking this code requires a wait, a recent newspaper or an internet connection. Inside the document with the winning numbers is a short list with just 10 numbers; its easy. The ticket also provides an extra game, which is a cheap knockoff in comparison to winning a million. Given that this is the highest chance to win such an amount its still fair.

The smaller tickets, as the BMW ticket, disappointed. The smaller ones do provide a quick fix, but don’t deliver the tension/price ratio Mega Cash does. The BMW ticket is something you buy if you need a BMW (a 33.325 value); it has limited numbers (half of mega cash) and an extra game. The BMW ticket has the poorest profit chance, and I just don’t like the car.

Disclaimer

Warning: The numbers in this article have been manually taken from the original documents and may contain errors. For any factual numbering, review the krasloten/state lottery website. The state lottery has been contacted about the amount of prizes in their November 2009 lottery, if this mail gets response i’ll change this article accordingly. Dayzers and lotto have been omitted in this test; this only focusses on instant lottery and state lottery.

Sources

• Krasloten
• Staatsloterij
• Belastingdienst (kansspelbelasting)

Tags: holland, investigation, jackpot, krasloten, lottery, Lotto, percentage, scratch, tickets, win, winning

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