Microsoft(R) Silverlight(R) Logo(R) Aestetics(R)

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Something(R) that(R) only(R) Microsoft can(R) do(R)TM; screw(R) up(R) aestetics(R) with(R) copyright(R) symbols(R)(C). Its(R) been(R) burning(R) my(R) eyes(R) since(R) the(R) Windows XP startup(R) screen(R)TM. Having(R) a(R) branding-flood(R)TM makes(R) a(R)design(R) look(R) poor(R) and(R) cheap(R); as(R) if(R) the(R) company(R) is(R) scared(R) and(R) will(R) sue(R) if(R) you(R) “Ever(R) Dare(R) To(R) Use(R) It(R) For(R) Something(R) Else(R)”(R)TM(C). Like(R) it(R) reduces(R) the(R) number(R) of(R) pirate(R) products(R). Its(R) the(R)  biggest(R) software(R) company(R) in(R) the(R) world(R), what(R) did(R) you(R) expect*(R)TM.

What(R) Apple(R) and(R) Google(R) omit(R), is(R) what(R) Microsoft makes(R) up(R) singlehandedly(R). Check(R) out(R) the(R) following(R) screenshots(R)TM.

(ps: the Silverlight logo switched from a TM to an (R).)

* = (C)(R)TM(P)

Masterlan 6

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I heard you like spare-time so we put some spare-time in your spare-time so you can relax while you relax. It doesn’t work that way.

Previous week I wrote about 101010, the hacker new-years party in The Hague. I traveled about 500 kilometers in a single day, which wasn’t enough. This weekend I traveled about 750 kilometers, in 3 days. If you also add trains, its 1000. This is what happened.

Friday 15 oct 2010

I’m not counting the train i took from Zutphen to Gouda just to have a one-hour meeting and 1 hour of mediawiki fun. Back to Zutphen and there I packed my stuff and went straight to Masterlan 6. This event in Horst-aan-de-Maas is a good lanparty with social people.

Together with JeePee (or GP?) we played Super Mario Bros 3 on the NES. Instead of taking the short-whistle-route we played through almost every level. We’ve seen all maps and now its even more clear why this game is so awesome. Even if you’ve played it for years and years there are still new things to discover and new enemies to defeat. I want to continue with the retro project.

With some guitar hero and some light-coding on my network scanner i called it a day. Oh wait; maybe some poker. 5 euro buy-in. Then all-in at the first round against people i don’t know. Never doing any-stakes poker again.

I expected to have a horrible night sleep in the noisy Merthal, but it turned out to be one of the better nights of sleep in the past few months. Exactly the right temperature and with earplugs there was no noise; i wished i could have slept there longer. But it was time for the next day.

Saturday 16 oct 2010

Saturday started with a 2-hour trip to The Hague, again to the revspace. This time to discuss things for HackSquare for CCC next year. We all talked about what we where doing and have a mindmap-brainstorm on next years theme. Oasis. We discussed all kinds of options including space, memes, holland and water; but it ended in Oasis. And thats what it is. Some of the Hx2 people already updated it check out our wiki (and with “our” i mean COMMUNISM). I’m excited for the things we can do for retro;

Ooh, and there might be a big surprise planned for next years CCC which is definitely vintage. Its one of those things that are SO awesome; its “Insanely Great”. At 6 it was time to get back to Horst. I arrived at about 8.30 and it was time to relax and just see what happened in the mean time.

After some guitar hero we played Anti-Monopoly. This game didn’t really do it for us. As a competitor we found we didn’t earn enough. 3 houses on the most expensive real-estate reels in 100 dollars?  Competitors had an even tougher time, one of them only made it past one full round. The rest of the game he was stuck in prison. With 6 players i cannot recommend this game; but well it was still fun to play it once. In other news; the language-usage-statistics peaked on the word “Henk”. An in-joke on the Mastermovie of Saving Private Henk.

Sunday 17 okt 2010

Then another great round of sleep. I slept from 3  till 12am and it was all good. Time to get up and go to Almere. A family trip. It was good.

And that’s it. 🙂 The second, (and last?), insanity weekend.

Conclusion

Its too much; doing one thing or something sequentially is better. I felt like i had to be at two places at the same time. This is not up to par with slacking. Another lesson learned. But i know someone who’d rather would be at two places at the same time. And i like his mustache.

    101010 – Hacker new years party

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    In the spirit of ‘live your life to the fullest’ i’m writing this page on the last two days of my life.

    Friday 08 – 10 – 10

    It all started friday, that day i rewrote part of my ftpscanner so it performs automatic network scans. One of the things was to automatically find the subnet mask. Another thing was to include DC++ scans; which requires recursive XML handing. Thank god for SimpleXML. Anyway; after about 12 hours of continuous programming i called it a day and went to sleep; thats where the madness starts.

    Saturday 09 – 10 – 10

    My planning for saturday looked like this: Get laptop @ aetab, visit the rest of the Retro crew and then move to the 10-10-10 hacker new years party @revspace.

    Home, Zutphen, 10 am

    Due to the coding rush from friday, i awoke at 10 am. I had to pack my dj-gear for the revspace party and of course stuff to stay over at revspace. At 12 am, i was off! First destination: Arnhem. Then to Leeuwarden, then to The Hague and then, as it appears, back home. So what happened, what did we do that’s worth mentioning? Well, it was Project Retro and Hacker new year party.

    Laptop, Arnhem, 12.45 pm

    My first stop was Arnhem. My own laptop is at the repair service; i use it to connect to my dj setup which i was bringing for the 101010 party. Because i didn’t pay much attention to the firewire port I ended up borrowing a macbook pro with Firewire 800, instead of the 400 i needed. I should have asked for it 🙂 These things happen.

    I’ll just have to improvise and have hopes on finding a firewire 400 machine. That proved to be quite a challange. But first things first; its 13:00 hours and time to go to Leeuwarden.

    Retro, Leeuwarden, 15.00

    now thats a tasty burger

    Now thats a tasty burger

    We’re preparing our actions for next years CCC in Finowfurt near Berlin. In this we’re supported by the HXX Foundation, we’re determined to deliver the best Retro Gaming Area ever. One of our plans is to double or tripple the size of everything we did before. In order to get there, we’ve to arrange a few things. One of these is to increase the stash of retro consoles. We plan to have these consoles publicly (aka free with an asterix) available to events such as lanparties, hacker conferences and the like. They also will be available at public places such as hackerspaces, makerspaces and such accross the country.

    Our first actions have been set and more information will follow when its ready. Yes, DNF style. One of the things you can expect is a lookback on what we provided in the past years, including pictures, reviews and such. The meeting ended with some delicous homemade hamburgers. And when a hamburger is good, I do make pictures of those things. After eating 3 I was stuffed and ready to move on. Thank Syb and Jacko. I left at 7 pm. Next up: The Hague.

    101010 Hacker New Year Party, 21.15

    Revspace front door

    The party already started. It was nice to see all the familar faces again. Guys and girls from all over Holland joined to celebrate the Hackers new year. (explained for NORPS: 101010 is binary for 42; which is the answer to the ultimate question in life.) And there I was, with my dj stuff and harddrive.

    Setting up the equipment was easy, but still difficult. Psychic already had setup running; laptop, stuff for volume (mids + eq + compressor), headphones, cables and two scratchpads. I brought additional stuff: turntables, a dj mixer, monitors, amp, cambles and headphones.

    professional HD enclosure

    professional HD enclosure

    Before i could start mixing, there was one vital thing to be arranged; a macbook with firewire 400. There was only one macbook with those specs, and I was not allowed to insert my own harddrive in it; it would void the warranty. So we had to come up with another solution. What about an external USB drive? Would it work?

    Well, lets find one. Will-Do let me borrow her laptop and her USB enclosure. Maybe we could mount the disk and run software from it. So we unscrewed it and it, well… sort of. One screw went dull thus there was no other solution then using a drill and drill it out. When we (Brainsmoke, Aequitas) got it open, it appeared to be a PATA enclosure. My disc is SATA 🙂 Attempt 3;

    Zarya took up the task to find something else. After much digging and searching through revspace, he came up with a potentially dangerious setup; a 3.5″ sata enclosure with separate power supply. Because of my history with SATA enclosures and wrong power supplies (*poof, disk dead*) we’d had to look for something else.

    Got Drill?

    And what would that be? Well of course! A bunch of wires! Foobar had something brand-new; so it had to work. It did. We placed the wires into a professional HD enclosure and hooked it up to the mac. Using the Boot settings we could even boot from the USB disk. We did. The system showed up working exactly as my mac used to. Running the machine from USB wasn’t neccisarily slower than my own macbook. Even running DJ software, iTunes and copying files went okey without any noticable performance drawbacks! Thats just freaking awesome! Hackers!

    Sunday 101010

    GMC had the Mic and we all counted down to 101010. Liftoff blasted through the speakers and Psychic started with So Long, and thanks for all the fish. Then the obligatory Rickroll and we (Zarya, Psychic and me) mixed together Happy hardcore, GOA, the Prodigy and closed with minimal techno. Good shit.

    The picture below shows the dj booth; well, it doesn’t really show anything. You might distinguish 4 speakers, 2 laptops, 4 turntables, 1 dj mixer, 100 meter of cables, some lights, a space-invader floor and six giant velociraptors lurking in the background.

    Most people left between 2 am to 2.30 am. That left some room open for filthy noise, 4chan music and incorrect jingles. But we also had to stop as it turned out sleeping in the space was not possible. After packing all stuff I left about 3 am. The trip home would take up another two hours and at 5am I was in bed.

    Here are some extra pictures from the revspace at the end of the night. Did you know they run (and are huge fans of) Windows 95? Thank god for that Microsoft Gold Partnership.

    Conclusion

    101010 has been totally fantastic and i can’t wait for 010111 (23), 100111 (39), 110111(55), 011011(27), 101011(43), 111011(59), 011111(31), 101111(47) and 111111(63). Thanks revspace for throwing this great party!

    Happy 42 everybody!

    Omnomnom cakes

    Omnomnom cakes

    MOAR?

    Stitch Liveshow – Episode 13 – Fidget Electro

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    The Stitch Liveshow is a recorded liveset mixed by Stitch. Previous livesets and updates are available via Twitter. Follow me and i’ll follow you back. No spam, just mixes.

    A new dj mixer and an improved setup with pirate noise speckles. Its the stitch liveshow with a fine selection of Fidget Electro House.

    The longest set i’ve ever done. 2:39:29. It took its toll; after more than an hour of WIN i got a little fatigued and started making facepalm errors. So 40 minutes before closing I noticed and opened a can of energy drink; which had instant impact improving mixing 🙂

    I’ve chopped the set into different parts; easy, chaotic, easy, hardest. Hope you enjoy the tunes and the mixing. Feedback is always appreciated.

    Total playing time: 2:39:29

    Download

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

    Filesize: 365.1 MB, 320 kbit.

    Tracklist

    1. Link to the past – Intro theme
    2. Steve Smooth and JJ Flores – Sex Fiend (Hatiras Remix)
    3. Gregori Klosman, Danny Wild – Kixxx (Tristan Garner Lost In Rave Remix)
    4. Calvertron & Tim Healey – Back 2 The Ghetto (Original Mix)
    5. Jayson Miro & D’Arezzo feat. D. MC – Chop Till You Drop (Original Mix)
    6. Lock N Load – Blow Ya Mind 2010 (Swanky Tunes Mix)
    7. Crookers and Roisin Murphy – Royal T (Foamo Remix)
    8. Funk D & La Fuente – Irish (Club Edit Edit)
    9. X-Press 2 – London Xpress (Tim Healey Vs Marc Adamo Remix)
    10. Dirty Super Car – Get A Grip (Maximilian Remix)
    11. Nightcrawlers – Push The Feeling On (Player & Remady Mix)
    12. Deadmau5 vs Jelo – The Reward Is Cheese (Johnny Krazy Rework)
    13. Asino and Arma – Land Of Confusion (Rework)
    14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (A-Trak Remix)
    15. Fatboy Slim feat. Lazy Rich – Weapon Of Choice 2010 (Lazy Rich Remix)
    16. Pluggd – Thrust (Original Mix)
    17. Herve & Dj Sneak feat. Kid Infinity – Droppin Kisses (Herve Club Mix)
    18. Jak-Z  – Get Ya Ass Up (Kelevra Remix)
    19. DJ Kez – Fuck’n’Disco ’09 (Kez’s Fidget Unrollin’ Mix)
    20. DJ Yanny pres. Terraformer – Won`t Forget These Days 2K10 (Disco Freak Up Down Remix)
    21. Pimp Rockers – Keep On Rockin (Starkillers & Austin Leeds Remix)
    22. Pascal & Pearce – Disko Biskit (Original Mix)
    23. DJ Alex Kidd – Feel This Free
    24. Butterbox – I Am Your DJ (Original Mix)
    25. Kieran Brindley & Kalva – Ribeye (Original Mix)
    26. Hirshee – California (Soundpusher Remix)
    27. Electric Soulside – Moulin Rouge (Lazy Rich Mix)
    28. Lorenzo Anzzur – Shift (Original Mix)
    29. Cyberpunkers – Is Alternative (Uppermost Remix)
    30. Calvertron – Doo Doo (Jelo Mix)
    31. Gimbal & Sinan – Halogen (Original Mix)
    32. Monolythe – Siberia (Jelo Remix)
    33. Cold Blank – Raver Booty (Original Mix)
    34. ZXX and Paul Anthony – Follow This Beat (Original Mix)
    35. JELO & Adam K – The Good, The Bad & The Funky (Original Mix)
    36. Defunct! – Welcome Back (Will Bailey & Mikey Hook Remix)
    37. Gigi Barocco – Rowdy Jack (The Deficient Remix)
    38. Hirshee – The Rinse Out (Keemerah Remix)
    39. Kevin Stephens, trickwaters – Fire Emblem Etude for Piano in F# Minor

    Google Scribe Loops

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    Yay, I just heard about scribe. After finding it could not help me with a random text on butterflies, it was a matter of finding out what it could do. I started with a ” ” space, and then just see what it would come up with. Enter enter enter enter enter. On September 8, on 4.00 PM GMT+1 it came up with the following contemporary art piece, which is a weird blabbering loop! 🙂

    There are no comments for this user yet and can not believe that there is anything you would not believe how much I loved them all and I’ma let you finish but Beyonce had one of these days I’ll bet your life on the road today and they are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I’ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I’ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I’ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I’ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I’ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to the

    AD INFINITUM. In dedication to this awkward looping, of which i think will become its own art, the next sentence will prevail:

    “are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I’ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books”

    POIDH:

    And Kanye West would be proud, he’s in Scribes short term memory.

    [update]

    This is the one on “R” mode:

    There are notable exceptions to this rule is too restrictive and that they arent there to give your homemade prom dresses and gowns for their own users and groups to their Friends and Family offers advice and guidance only and should not become another statistic in their signature issue of health care services today and tomorrow and tomorrow night at the museum 2 dvdrip french xvid phoenix tk avi free torrent from our torrents database or choose analog in Movies & TV Shows torrents found on your search query to the database area and then thirdly, there is another way too much time online or playing games without having to worry about logging in again or it will become another of these embodiments are provided solely for their own users and groups to their Friends and Family offers advice and guidance only and should not become another statistic in their signature issue of health care services today and tomorrow and tomorrow night at the museum 2 dvdrip french xvid phoenix tk avi free torrent from our torrents database or choose analog in Movies & TV Shows torrents found on your search query to the database area and then thirdly, there is another way too much time online or playing games without having to worry about logging in again or it will become another of these embodiments are provided solely for their own users and groups to their Friends and Family offers advice and guidance only and should not become another statistic in their signature issue of health care services today and tomorrow and tomorrow night at the museum 2 dvdrip french xvid phoenix tk avi free torrent from our torrents database or choose analog in Movies & TV Shows torrents found on your search query to the database area and then thirdly, there is another way too much time online or playing games without having to worry about logging in again

    Give me one of those homemade prom dresses. The loop being a recommendation to a torrent, i can see the scandal already:

    “for their own users and groups to their Friends and Family offers advice and guidance only and should not become another statistic in their signature issue of health care services today and tomorrow and tomorrow night at the museum 2 dvdrip french xvid phoenix tk avi free torrent from our torrents database or choose analog in Movies & TV Shows torrents found on your search query to the database area and then thirdly, there is another way too much time online or playing games without having to worry about logging in again or it will become another of these embodiments are provided solely“

    On “S” mode we’re served company highlights:

    “There are currently too many topics in this forum and you are notified that they are not therefore able to provide readers links to articles that cite this paper by participating publishers will also be listed here please contact the operator of the blogosphere and then they will not have anything for sale are not permitted for the following reasons for their decisions and actions that can help your business make progress towards their goals and objectives for their work and get exposure to their workers and their families and friends who have been there forever and a daytime phone number and position within the organization and their membership functions are used for their intended purpose and then they will not have anything for sale are not permitted for the following reasons for their decisions and actions that can help your business make progress towards their goals and objectives for their work and get exposure to their workers and their families and friends who have been there forever and a daytime phone number and position within the organization and their membership functions are used for their intended purpose and then they will not have anything for sale are not permitted for the following reasons for their decisions and actions that can help your business make progress towards their goals and objectives for their work and get exposure to their workers and their families and friends who have been there forever and a daytime phone number and position within the organization and their membership functions are used for their intended purpose and then they will not have anything for sale are not permitted for the following reasons for their decisions and actions that can help your business make progress“

    The loop:

    “and then they will not have anything for sale are not permitted for the following reasons for their decisions and actions that can help your business make progress towards their goals and objectives for their work and get exposure to their workers and their families and friends who have been there forever and a daytime phone number and position within the organization and their membership functions are used for their intended purpose “

    What will it suggest tomorrow? 🙂

    See also:

    • http://scribe.googlelabs.com/
    • http://gizmodo.com/5632729/this-article-was-fully-composed-on-googles-new-automatic-writing-system


    Selection of loud, weird and hip-new strange tunes

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    – Interruption –
    A selection of loud, weird and strange electro house and dubstep tunes i’ve been listening to for the past few weeks. All of these tracks are special. All of them stand out.
    1. Monolythe – Siberia (Jelo Remix) [because of the bassline, wow!]
    2. Skirmish – Dont Tell Anybody ft Cherly Cole [its clarity, simplicity and even more impressive bassline]
    3. Jayson Miro & D’Arezzo feat. D. MC – Chop Till You Drop (Original Mix) [mellow sounds meet ghetto-trash-cheap-youth-electro]
    4. Deadmau5 vs Jelo – The Reward Is Cheese (Johnny Krazy Rework) [as steady as they come]
    5. The Residents Evil – Bite [another growling bassline]
    6. X-press 2 – London Xpress (Tim Healey Vs Marc Adamo Remix) [excellent remix, listening to this one for months. The siren is awesome.]
    7. KANE DUBSTEP – bioluminescence [this goed beyond every imaginable fucked up noise and is SUPEREFFECTIVE]
    8. Tremourz and J. Rabbit – Energylegs [IT WILL MAKE YOU HAVE 400 BABIES]
    9. MC Jakes  – Warface (Distorted Minds Remix) [private joker, why did you join my beloved corps?]
    10. Pascal & Pearce – Disko Biskit (Original Mix) [game over]

    Yes, too lazy for youtubes… check them out, its worthwhile.

    – i’m sorry ‘ did i break your concentration? go on! –

    Midnight brainteaser

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    A friend of mine just sent me a brain teaser. It looked so intriguing, all those numbers ordered in some kind of fashion. So i decided to take on the challenge. This is what Sebastiaan sent:

    Taking on the challenge

    My first attempt was performed in Textedit, and it was a cumbersome process of shuffling and reshuffling numbers. My guess was that R was a negative number, and with some negative trickery the puzzle was solvable.

    After a few minutes of failed attempts I recognized my brain failed at this hour. So lets do some stupid programming, in order to figure out the correct values for the puzzle.

    Firing up a text editor and writing out the formula, i hunched at the formula’s tightness. If the formula is not written correctly, the puzzle is incorrect and thus unsolvable. If not, the numbers will probably even out in a few iterations. The challenge then is to find an iteration that matches the start value: Z = 1.

    Finding initial values

    The formula did balance out. Only with some initial values set to 8 or higher, the result would crash. With the following initial values, i found the simplest outcome of this puzzle:

    $K = -1;
$L = -1;
$R = 2;
$W = -1;
$Y = 1;
$Z = 1;

iteration 0
Y + R = K | 1 + 2 = 3
K + R = L | 3 + 2 = 5
R + R = W | 3 + 2 = 4
Y - R = Z | 1 - 2 = -1
K - W = Z | 3 - 4 = -1
L - W = Y | 5 - 4 = 1
R * R - W = R | 2 * 2 - 4 = 0

iteration 1
Y + R = K | 1 + 0 = 1
K + R = L | 1 + 0 = 1
R + R = W | 1 + 0 = 0
Y - R = Z | 1 - 0 = 1
K - W = Z | 1 - 0 = 1
L - W = Y | 1 - 0 = 1
R * R - W = R | 0 * 0 - 0 = 0

K = 1
L = 1
R = 0
W = 0
Y = 1
Z = 1

    I also found one other answer after a few other input combinations. How many more could there be?

    Taking it one step further

    That wasn’t too hard, just some guessing, and it was fixed. All iterations after iteration 1 resulted in the same answer: Z is 1 and manually checking this sum confirmed correctness. Now, what other answers could there be. I expanded the sourcecode of the original puzzle to try all input variables from -9 to 9. That would be  18 * 18 * 18 * 18  * 18 * 18 * 18 attempts, or 18 ^ 6 or 3401224 attempts to solve this puzzle.

    I was wondering how many solutions there would be, and how many input variables resulted to the same solution. Couldn’t be that hard. With little rewriting and some debugging we came to the following code:

    The final answer

    For humans, trying any value below -9 or higher than 9 would mean intense complexity. So after performing all 34 million possibilities with some iterative logic, the chance of someone guessing the right answer is pretty high:

    Array
(
    [notfound] => 33487344
    [7.10.3.6.4.1] => 314928
    [1.1.0.0.1.1] => 209952
)
    In this order: K.L.R.W.Y.Z
    Of all possibilities, 0.94% deliver the variable numbering result. A lower 0.63 goes for the binary solution. From any combination of input combinations, you’ll have a chance of 1.57% for hitting a correct one.  However, i managed to find both in less than 20 tries. I’m wondering if there is correlation between finding a correct result and input combinations.

    Correlation

    Growth of the incorrect versus correct answers has shown to have a sweetspot. With samples every 1000 calculations, it’s visible that every so often no new correct answers are found. With a total over 34000 samples, excel couldn’t make a graph anymore. So i gave it a break. (it says: “could not make a graph with > 32000 datapoints”)
    Well, something showed up, what appears to be a linear graph, with little dents. The dents could also be pixel aliassing. Since it takes until forever to get more details from excel, we put it to rest. Its included in the downloads.
    My hopes where to find a sweet spot; a range that has significant impact on the number of correct answers that where found. Such a thing is available, look at the begin and end numbers of columns N and O. Those represent both correct answers. Column P holds the notfound value.  After a series of correct answers, increasing N and O (as seen in the picture) almost the same amount of records show no increase in N or O, only in notfound. This means there is a sweetspot.
    The exact range for this sweetspot, or what input variables do not matter in the puzzle, is hard to determine without a graph. Just looking at the numbers make my head spin, and this is only 75 records.
    If there where a sweetspot, i would try to perform the same calculations, but then with floats instead of integers. I expect to find 20 extra correct answers then. But who knows, i didn’t get the chance to try it. Oh, wait. Just let me do this from 0 to 3, with 0.1 increases instead of integers.

    Floating points

    Using floating points resulted in nothing new. Unfortunately, i’d hoped for some cool answers that did not involve integers. Well, at least we’ve tried. The cool thing with floats is that the answers keep on fluctuating; it never evens out. Well, i tried with 10.000.000 iterations, and still different things happen.

    The following morning: Hey just wait a minute… Only R and Y make sense in this equation. Thats why most of the time nothing happened. Lets try it with only modifying R and Y… nothing 🙁

    Conclusion

    My initial assumption was wrong: there is no answer that uses negative integers in the range of -1 to -9. It just doesn’t exist. Excel couldn’t make heads or tails of the data, it was simply too large for a graph. I’m thinking of datawhorehouse tooling. Trying with fewer parameters and only 0.1 and etc didn’t result in any answer. Well, enough for now, i could stretch this to the end of the galaxy. All files are available for download.

    That concludes this nights brainteaser, its time for slee… zzzzzzz

    QTHEBEAT – Uit den ouden Doosch…

    3 Replies

    Begin 2000 kwam ik in Zutphen wonen. Een turbulente tijd, maar er was een constante; een radiostation dat 24/7 hiphop en r&b uitzond. Het was een station dat ik had gevonden tijdens het scannen naar goede zenders; 1224 AM. Een shit frequentie, maar wat heb ik daar vaak naar geluisterd. Gezien de beperkte informatie over Qthebeat heb ik  de info die ik kon vinden bij elkaar geschraapt, en geef ik mijn kijk op de opkomst en ondergang van dit station. Mocht je nog artwork, jingles of andere meuk hebben: laat het achter in de comments.

    Urban

    Ik was al fan van urban muziek. Elke maand downloadde ik de OOHLA hip-hop/rnb top 30. Zelfs na 10 jaar bestaat die lijst nog, met nog steeds de beste nummers. Veel hiervan zullen het hier nooit maken, maar zijn zeker de moeite waard. Ook was smoothbeats.com een van m’n favorieten. Dat bestaat ook nog steeds, en ze vieren hun 10 jarig bestaan. Toen kwam ineens, uit het niets, een experimentele zender op de AM voorbij: Qthebeat. Het was niet altijd in de lucht, waardoor het leek op een piratenzender. Ik luisterde ongeveer elke dag om te horen of er weer werd uitgezonden. Het zou augustus of september 1999 zijn geweest [1]. Als het er was, stond het aan. De kick van de laatste nummers, goede urban en gewoon de AM-shitty frequentie maakte het fantastisch.

    Opbouw

    Het station begon met 24/7 een urban playlist, met recente hits zoals The Beatnuts – no escaping this, Cam’ron – What means the world to you, en Eve – Who’s that girl (met DJ CLUE geschreeuw NEW SHIT, WHAAAAAAAAaaa, echo). Volgens mij maakte het voor Qthebeat niet uit waar ze de nummers vandaan haalden, als ze maar werden uitgezonden. Na een jaar kwam de Blockbuster; een toekomstige hit die om de 2 uur, aan het begin van het uur werd gedraaid. Dit was altijd iets om naar uit te kijken, elke week was er een nieuwe, waardoor je als eerste Shaggy – It Wasn’t Me,  Outkast – Miss Jackson of  Crazy Town – Butterfly hoorde. Dat was gewoon heerlijk. Er werd nog steeds niet gesproken, en de AM ontvangst was nog steeds shitty.

    De AM, het geluid en de zender

    Hoewel anders werd beloofd[4], was Qthebeat gedoemd om altijd op de AM te blijven. Behalve dat het bedrijf achter Qthebeat dubieus zou zijn [3], was er ook geen geld [1]. Er waren ook geen reclames. Het geluid was absoluut waardeloos, zeker als ik hard had staan kwam, afhankelijk van het weer, een harde piep door de opnames heen. Op sommige dagen was het niet eens goed te ontvangen, maar dat droeg bij aan de charme. Juist ruis en storingen maakte het leuk om naar te luisteren. Ik kon niet zonder Qthebeat, dus ik nam ook regelmatig wat op zodat ik het op m’n walkom terug kon luisteren. Cassettes. Recentelijk heb ik al mn 80 tapes afgeluisterd om te horen wat voor geniale muziek erop stond. Daar vond ik ook een stukje Qthebeat. Dat klonk ongeveer zo:

    Bleh… Youtube opname doet er iets langer over… Er komen 3 filmpjes aan met Edith den Doosch.

    Wat achtergrond info over de zender: Qthebeat werd uitgezonden vanaf het schip de “MV Communicator”. De studio stond in Hoofddorp (gebouwd door en fotos bij d&ms). Er zijn foto’s van het schip in de aanlegplaats in de pampushaven bij Almere. Het schip is inmiddels gesloopt, uiteraard na berichten dat het in perfecte staat verkeerd. Een trieste dag voor schipzenderfanaten. Op de website van een radiofanaat staat nog een Qthebeat Jingle. The best in urban music.

    Presentatie en programma’s

    Het laatste jaar was er presentatie. Eddy keur en zijn dode-baby grappen zat in de ochtend, Edith den Doosch en haar eeuwige pubertijd zat in de middag. Op zaterdag was er de Snoop Dogg radio show en kwam er regelmatig een mix voorbij. Hierin zat o.a. AZ – Problems (remix van debarge), wat nog steeds een van mn favorieten is. Owja, ook regelmatig een cutup van Missy Elliots – Get Your Freak On en Jay-Z + R Kelly – Guilty until proven Innocent. Ik weet nog wel dat we naar het strand in Busloo gingen, en ik per se de walkman van een vriend moest lenen. Daar zat een AM ontvanger op, dus kon je Qthebeat mixen luisteren op het strand. Fucking heerlijk.

    De Snoop Dogg radio show was op zich ook wel lekker om te luisteren. Wat gelul over snoops nieuwe kleding, maar ook wat leuke platen zoals Bone Thugs N Harmony – Ecstacy en een remix van De la Souls Saturday. Owja, en Edith kondigde vrolijk Get Fucked Up van de Iconz af, dat was wel grappig. Maar duidelijk; de laatste 2 platen waren geen blijvertjes maar leuk die dagen. Eddy had het volgens mij niet echt op rapmuziek, maar de ochtendshow was best legendarisch.

    Ik vraag me af of een van al deze mensen ooit een euro hebben gekregen van Qthebeat. Vast niet.

    Documentaire

    Op het hoogtepunt is een cameraploeg van de VPRO langsgeweest. Deze hebben een item geschoten waarin Qthebeat het onderwerp was.  Er werd gesproken over een amerikaanse partner die al 1000 stations in bezit had. Dit was ClearChannel Communications. De documentaire was te zien op 11 maart 2001 om 21.05 in het programma Zeven Dagen [11] [12].

    Het archief zegt hierover het volgende:

    “Reportage van Robert Oey over de veiling van de commerciële radiofrequenties op de FM-zender. De overheid heeft anderhalf jaar geleden aangekondigd dat deze veiling er zou komen. Onder protest van de huidige commerciële omroepen lijkt men de veiling te willen opschorten. Kleine commerciële radiostations dreigen nu een claim in te dienen, waaronder radiozender Q the Beat uit de Randstad. Q the Beat wil zich
    koste wat kost een plaats zien te verwerven op de FM-zender en ziet nu, door het uitstellen van de veiling, zijn plannen in het water vallen. Div. medewerkers van Q de Beat worden gevolgd tijdens overlegsituaties.
    INTERVIEWS hierover met:
    – Rob van der Vegt, dir. Q the Beat/Media Matters;
    – Jack Meesters, radiostrateeg;
    – Mark van Oosterhout, accountmanager Q the Beat;
    – Leontien van der Meer (Q the Beat/Media Matters);
    – Nicolet Don, advocaat Q the Beat.    ”

    Helaas is er niet heel erg veel te zien in de korte documentaire. Het eindigt met een shot van een basketbal veld met een ghettoblaster, maar het is ookal weer 10 jaar geleden. Mocht ik ooit bij het archief langsgaan, dan ga ik deze zeker opvragen.

    Ondergang

    Het station draaide, maar leverde niets op. Zelfs toen er genoeg diesel in de aggregaat gegooid werd om continue uit te zenden, kwam er nog niets uit. Clearchannel wilde er geen geld meer insteken en medio augustus 2002 was het gedaan[1]. Of er sprake is geweest van een herstart is onduidelijk, maar die kans lijkt me groot. Het zit in het bloed [2]. Colorful radio schijnt er ook iets mee van doen te hebben.

    Echter stierf het station niet zomaar, er is geprobeerd om een frequentie te krijgen. Dit heeft voornamelijk te maken met het moederbedrijf Clearchannel, wat poot aan de grond wilde hebben in Nederland. Het liefst voor een paar dubbeltjes. Tijdens de herindeling werd er door Arrow en Qthebeat behoorlijk wat tamtam gemaakt [6]. Er was veel remoer over de herindeling, tot diep in de politiek [7] [9] [10]. Dat heeft uiteindelijk niets opgeleverd; Qthebeat verdween. Ik vroeg me af of er daadwerkelijk geld zou komen om het überhaupt rendabel te maken. Arrow heeft inmiddels ook de geest gegeven. Overigens vind ik het vreemd dat CCC Arrow niet heeft overgenomen; als ze zo graag een poot aan de grond wilden. Maargoed… wat weet ik nu weer van radio maken.

    Domeinen qthebeat .com en .am zijn inmiddels dood. Het .nl domein naar is inmiddels weer vrij. Het internet archief heeft niets bewaard, helaas. Maar de website stelde ook niet veel voor. Een 24kbit stream en een Q logo. Jingles en andere huisstijlen lijken inmiddels de prullenbak in gegaan. Het station is voorbij en liet 1.3 miljoen aan schulden achter [5].

    De namen achter het station, o.a. Rob van der Vegt[8], levert niets op met google. Overigens scheen die samen te werken met Leontien van der Meer, wat ik samen mooie achternamen vind. De bedrijfsnamen achter Qthebeat waren The Beat Goes On BV en Media Matters BV.

    Oproep

    Als iemand nog verhalen, opnamen, artwork of jingles heeft; zet ze in de comments of stuur ze op. Dat maakt het plaatje compleet. Ik ben vooral benieuwd naar de bron van de mixen op zaterdag. Groeten, Elger

    Bronnen

    1. [1] = http://radiomonique963.punt.nl/?gr=772653
    2. [2] = http://radio.nl/portal/home/medianieuws/010.archief/2000/04/71233.html
    3. [3] = http://radio.nl/portal/home/medianieuws/010.archief/2000/08/71892.html
    4. [4] = http://www.radio.nl/portal/home/medianieuws/010.archief/2000/11/72592.html
    5. [5] = http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zerobase
    6. [6] = http://radio.nl/portal/home/medianieuws/001.zero_base/zerobase_nieuws/default.asp?intArticleID=79129
    7. [7] = http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME04/Mag_de_rechter.shtml
    8. [8] = http://www.radiovisie.eu/nl/nieuws.rvsp?art=00039825
    9. [9] = http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME03/Protesten_problemen.shtml
    10. [10] = http://www.radiovisie.eu/nl/nieuws.rvsp?art=00042802
    11. [11] = http://www.manuelfm.radiowereld.nl/portal/home/medianieuws/010.archief/2001/03/73412.html
    12. [12] = http://www.vpro.nl/programma/7dagen/afleveringen/3430477/

    RetroTV broadcasting project part 2

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    Okey, i’ve updated and improved the RetroTV project with a few additions.

    1. Added the sourcecode to github
    2. Started a wiki
    3. Built communication between VLC and php
    4. Added date-support for shows, making weird schedules possible
    5. Defined what to do for this release (V1.0)

    Github and Wiki

    RetroTV is now a project on GitHub, they offer free hosting to open-source projects. The address for browsing the code, and the accompanied wiki, is:

    The wiki explains what is going on in the code, and tries to show the projects intentions. It will be the first place for user-oriented documentation. Technical documentation is a little bit more different, preferably only design decisions are listed. Check it out: http://wiki.github.com/stitch/RetroTV/

    When popularity increases, the github wiki will be replaced with a real one.

    Built communication with VLC

    VLC has a telnet interface, and something called VLM; VideoLan Manager, which is a scheduler. Both suffer from pretty poor documentation, but its done. When running VLC in telnet mode, PHP can create schedules and playlists based upon the programming specified by users.

    Running the SHOW command, after RetroTV has finished, looks something like this:

    Added date support in programming

    Creating a schedule has now more flexibility. In the previous, unreleased version, programming was a daily cycle. When the day ended, we would start over from the start. With the current date support, its possible to make complex programming. Adding a date is mandatory, and as such a looping programming isn’t possible. Maybe, when only programming for a single day is specified, looping might become a feature.

    Creating a new set of playlists currently looks like this:

    Roadmap

    The first release will be out before/on August 1st. What has to be done is this:

    VLC Streaming Support

    The largest blocking issue is VLC’s streaming support. There is a prominent bug in broadcasting M4v content in simple setups. Basically we need to stream any kind of movie file to two different setups. A HTTP setup and a multicast setup. Both experimenting and debugging VLC has proven to be tedious, so this is a risk.

    Announcements

    Announcements are nearing good-enough-state for version 1.0. Only a few transitions and faster processing are among the desires. I’ve already shown announcements work in a proof of concept.

    Logo while Streaming

    What’s a TV station without a logo in one of the corners of the video? Well… nothing. It doesn’t seem hard to do, but with VLC you’ll never know. I suspect it will be pretty smooth to do this. The logo has been designed, it was at the top of this article.

    Code cleanup

    Removing redundant / incorrect comments, renaming some stuff and giving the right place for parts of code. This is a continuous process, which affects every update untill 1.0 is ready.

    Further reading

    • http://elgerjonker.nl/2010/05/retrotv-broadcasting-project-part-1/
    • http://wiki.github.com/stitch/RetroTV/