Road Trip

The American North West is a beautiful place. That is why Amy and I chose it as the rough destination for our road trip. We had a 4 day weekend, and wanted to unwind. The variety of landscapes in Washington alone is impressive. The weather varied just as much. We had a hot sun, heavy rain, hail and show. It depends on which side of the mountains you are on. And the most impressive thing of all: we had a direct hit by a Dust Devil. It looks like a small tornado. The path of it crossed the path of the car, and the timing was exactly right. BANG on the hood of the car. It was less scarier than it sounds though. At first we tried to cross the mountain range at the far north in the US. However, after driving up the mountain, we had to go back again, due to a closed road. The map said "closed in winter". I guess April 5 is winter in these parts. In the first night we stayed in Wenatchee. The second day we visited Spokane. It is a very beautiful city. Check out that awesome bridge. Also we took a picture of Abe and Abe. We spent the night in Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The last night was in Yakima. Don't go there, it is boring, and you cannot find any restaurants there. The roads were awesome. There are a lot of back roads, most of them with no traffic on them. It really helps me relax driving there.

Asylum

What an amazing story. According to the Dutch Justice Department, it is impossible for Americans to get asylum in the Netherlands. Yet, one woman with her children is the living proof that it has been done. Her daughter tells the story. Sadly, the Dutch neighbour was browsing the FBI website 14 years later, and called in the feds. It must have been the reward money or maybe he did not like his neightbours?

New set of wheels

No, I have not yet acquired a motorcycle here in Canada. Yet, my special order from the United States has arrived. My Landyachtz Spud longboard has now a new set of wheels. The quadline wheels have a larger diameter, but are much more narrow. They look more like inline-skate wheels, than skateboard wheels. The diameter and tyre width make it that they have very little friction. Also, I removed the spacers, so that even though wheel diameter increased, ride height has been lowered. It was a bit of an experiment, but it paid off. I get some really smooth sailing now on my board. And silent running on some top notch ceramic bearings.

tax season

The tax season has started. The Canadian tax forms are due April 30th. The Dutch forms are due April 1. I have been studying on my taxes, and I am puzzled by the following.

Both Canada and the Netherlands decided to return large sums of money to me. Why? just because of the sheer random fact that I moved in june. Because I moved half-way the 2007 tax year, both countries consider my income to be low, as I worked only half a year in each country.

Yet, both my Dutch employer and Canadian employer have been deducting taxes as if I would be working a full year, gaining a full salary.

Had I moved in january, then I would have payed more tax in both countries. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the curse of progressive tax systems.

Progressive tax rates are in my opinion sheer nonsense. I understand that taxation is not by a fixed amount, say X euro per citizen. It should be relative to the wealth, so a percentage is more appropriate. Say every citizen X percent of his income. This is a flat tax system. Yet, both Canada and Holland have different rates for different people. This does not make sense.

It is my believe that every citizen, earning more than minimal income, should pay the same percentage. A third of your income would be psychologically a nice percentage. One third to the state, regardless of income. The 52 percent that Holland is taxing the wealthy is unjust. Why should the state get the bulk of the money you make?

The current system is broken. Dutch millionaires flee to Belgium. Dutch billionairs flee to Monaco. Canadian top earners are probably relocating their assets to some pacific tropical island.

Would there have been flat-tax in Canada and the Netherlands, then it would not have mattered when I would have moved in januari or on june. As it stands now, I have the burden of dilemma. Do I spend my tax return on an Italian V2 or Japanese Inline-4?

Where is the cable?

What do a maglev train and a San Francisco cable car have in common? More than you would initially think. Conventional motorized transport, be it a ship, motorcycle, automobile, train, or aeroplane, all have one thing in common. All those vehicles lug around their own engine. Why not leave the engine behind, and just move the coach and useful cargo? And that's exactly what a cable car does. The engine stays put on top of the hill. No energy is wasted in moving it about. The same goes for the maglev, where the engine is essentially the magnetized track. So when I was attending Sony's Game Tech Conference 2008 in San Francisco, I wanted to take a closer look at the Cable Car. I did not see the cables, and was puzzled. But I think the cables are below ground, and not above, where I expected them to be. Unfortunately, I did not get to ride the car.
While we are on the subject of city transport: those left wing radicals running the Amsterdam city council just banished my car from the city limits. They did this just because it is older than 1992, and supposedly I pollute the city with it. The bastards! My car uses the cleaner-burning propane fuel, but they do not seem to care about that. Foolishness like that makes me glad I am in Canada now, where common sense is not shunned.

And the award goes to....

What an experience last night! My boss had a spare ticket for the Elans award ceremony. It is the Canadian counterpart for the Oscars, targeted to Games and Animation. Slant Six had two nominations. And the ceremony was hosted by Seth McFarlane. He is the creator of Family Guy. Since I moved to Canada, I have been watching a lot of Family Guy, and have become a fan of the show. I was excited to attend this. I dressed up as good as I managed, as it was formal dress. Luckily I brought my bow-tie from the Netherlands. I managed to get a cab, which is always tricky in Vancouver if it rains during rush hour. When I arrived at the venue, my cab pulled up behind a limo. So when the greeter opened my cab door, and welcomed me, I was right behind some celebrities, and got to walk the red carpet in style. There were a lot of photographers, and the flashes went off. I don't think they were aiming for shots of me though. Heh Heh. Cool stuff!

Seth did a great show, very funny stuff. The ceremony itself was plagued with technical screw ups though. Nothing worked or cued at the correct time. It got so bad that I suspected a prank. However, it was un-intentional, and just very embarrasing. It was a very enjoyable night none the less. And what do you know... we won both our nominations. Slant Six is best new game company, and Tactical Strike is best handheld game of 2007. For the first Elans, I joined the crew and went onto stage to get the statue. How cool is that? Pete and Dave did the acceptance speeches. After the ceremony we attended the after-party. I got an extra ticket for that, so I called Amy to join me. Amy and I were hoping to catch Seth on the after party. Amy is a big fan of Seth as well, but we did not see him at the party, unfortunately. Oh well, the drinks were free, and we had a great time.

Happy new year.

Last week the Chinese new year started. We are now living in the year of the rat. There was a big parade in China Town this weekend. A lot of dragons, drums, cimbals and firecrackers. Today I hit the slopes of Cypress Mountain, on the Alpine Skis, together with Goran. I still had it in me, and after all these years since I last skied, I could still do green and blue slopes. Even though we had snow and rain, I had a blast.

Pappataci

Gisteravond hebben we de Vancouver Opera bezocht. Er was een uitvoering van L'italiana in Algeri. Het was mijn eerste opera bezoek. Met boventitels was het goed te volgen. Ik heb me goed vermaakt, alhoewel ik niet had verwacht dat de humor zo simpel zou zijn. Maar zoals Goran al zei: Sommige operas werden voor de keizer geschreven, maar andere operas voor het volk. Voor Goran en Slavica was het extra bijzonder, want ze zijn nu een jaar getrouwd.
Vandaag moet ik op zoek naar een manier om live naar SBS6 te kijken. De tragedie/thriller/klucht rond Natallee, geproduceerd door Peter R. de Vries is ook hier actueel. Het lijkt er op dat Peter het mysterie heeft opgelost. Dat zou een enorme prestatie zijn natuurlijk. Ik kan niet wachten tot maandag, dus ik hoop dat er Internet streaming is, of op zijn minst een bittorrent.

snowskate

Too much fun! After playing some Forza Motorsports at Goran's I went home at midnight. As always, I commute by longboard, but tonight it was snowing. Hmm... skateboarding on the deserted streets of downtown vancouver at midnight. Simply too much fun. It was a good night, winning the poker game again at work. I won the 2007 season of Poker at Slant Six by the way. They fear me now. Tonight was primarily luck though, not skill. I just kept getting dealt really good hands.

Sculpting

While living in Lelystad, I took a sculpting class. In this class, I created a concrete sculpture of a figurine sitting on top of a flight of stairs. I made a cast using plaster, and then poured the concrete. It stands 80 centimeters tall or so, and weighs more than I can carry. When Amy and I were on the Island visiting Amy's mother, she showed us her kiln. So I asked her for a sculpting seminar, which she generously gave us. The result is a follow up on my Lelystad piece, but this time in clay, and it will be fired in a Kiln. Sculpting real matter is a lot of fun, and a nice change from creating objects in Virtual Reality.

Billion

Een miljard euro

Hoeveel is nu eigenlijk een miljard euro? Tien tot de macht negen. Een politicus aarzelt niet om te spreken over miljarden, terwijl de gemiddelde burger geen flauw benul van dit concept heeft. Laten we het even in perspectief brengen:

Een miljard seconden geleden was het 1977.

Een miljard minuten geleden was het Romeinse Rijk op zijn grootst.

Een miljard uur geleden leefden onze voorvaders in het stenen tijdperk.

Een miljard euro geleden was slechts 51 uur en 54 minuten met de snelheid waarmee Den Haag het uitgeeft.

A billion dollars

How much is a billion dollars? Ten to the power of nine. A politician will casually use the word, whereas the common man has absolute no grasp of the concept. So let's visualize the billion dollars.

A billion seconds ago it was 1977.

A billion minutes ago the Roman Empire was at its largest expansion.

A billion hours ago our acenstors were living in the stone age.

A billion dollars ago was only 37 hours and 32 minutes ago at the rate Ottawa spends it.

Epiloog

Voor de oplettende lezer: Canada en Nederland geven ongeveer even veel uit. Met Canada's geld worden echter twee keer zoveel mensen en 100 keer zoveel landmassa bestuurd. Zelfs als je de begroting van British Columbia meerekent blijft de discrepantie. Dwaas als je het mij vraagt. De publieke voorzieningen zijn het zelfde. De medische zelfs beter. In Canada loop je gewoon gratis bij de doktor naar binnen wanneer dat jou uit komt, en niet wanneer de huisarts je eindelijk wenst te ontvangen. Tja, in Canada hebben ze het voordeel dat ze niet elke maand het parlement verhuizen naar Brussel of Strasbroug. Maar daar is iets aan te doen.

Debugging

My colleague Cedric sent me this funny wisdom on debugging computer code:

The Six Stages of Debugging:

1. That can’t happen.
2. That doesn’t happen on my machine.
3. That shouldn’t happen.
4. Why in the hell does that happen?
5. Oh, I see.
   
6. How in the hell did that ever work?

De sneeuw schoen

Eindelijk, mijn eerste dag wintersport in Vancouver. Ik ben met Amy naar Cypress moutain geweest. Daar hebben we door de sneeuw gelopen. Snow-shoeing noemen ze dat hier. Vroeger had je dan van die rieten plateaus onder je voeten. Tegenwoordig is het allemaal aluminium en koolstof vezel. Het was een flinke work-out, en het weer was perfect. De lucht was helder genoeg om niet alleen Vancouver te kunnen zien, maar zelfs Vancouver Island. De vogeltjes op de berg waren tam.

Computers kill democracy

It's interesting to see what is happening now in the US with Obama and Clinton. However, a dangerous trend has emerged. More and more elections are conducted using electronic means. This is a dangerous development. I studied Computer Science, and I know that computers and voting do not mix. Votes should be put down in paper. Changing a few bytes in a computer memory is a lot easier than forging thousands of ballots. What has happened now in New Hampshire is an outrage. If democracy is to be saved, we need to do away with electronic elections. Diebold voting machines: Ron Paul got 0 votes. Complaints by people who actually voted Ron Paul were followed by a "correction". Ron Paul did get votes after all. Stop e-voting now, I say.

Kwak Kwak Kwak Kwak

On new year's eve I will be hosting a party with Amy. Yesterday we stocked up on drinks and food. Today we did the decorations. The yellow Ford GT model was a xmas gift by Goran. To have a little break, we visited UBC's museum for Anthropology. Man, oh man, the European colonists really gave the natives a hard time. In the Canadian-Indian Act, they even outlawed congregations of natives. This ban was finally revoked in 1951. In that year, they could finally have a traditional fest again. We had a tourguide telling us about the coastal tribes. Erroneously, she referred to them as the Kwak Kwak Kwak. However, they were actually called the Kwak Kwak Kwak Kwak. They were pretty primitive, as they had to learn the concept of a wheel from the Europeans.



Voor oudjaar host ik met Amy een feestje. Gisteren hebben we drank en voedsel ingeslagen. Vandaag hebben we de decoraties gedaan. De gele Ford GT was een kerst cadeautje van Goran. Als intermezzo hebben we het Anthropologie museam van UBC bezocht. Man, oh man, wat hebben de Europeanen veel leed bezorgd. In de Canadian-Indian act werd het de natives zelfs verboden om hun traditionele bijeenkomsten te houden. Pas in 1951 konden ze weer hun feesten houden. We hadden een gids voor de rondleiding. Ze vertelde over de kust-volkeren, die ze foutief als de Kwak Kwak Kwak benoemde. Volgens mij heten ze namelijk Kwak Kwak Kwak Kwak. Ze waren erg primitief, daar ze het concept van het wiel van de Europeanen moesten leren.

Bald Eagle

We're visiting Amy's mother on Vancouver Island. Her house is close to the ocean, and there is abundance of wildlife here. I saw my first bald eagle. Perched in the top of a tree. When it took off, it flew right over the house. It was an impressive spectacle. After the hibernation period, I hope to see some grizzly bears as well. Today we visited Tofino. This is a hippie town on the far west of the island. It was popular with American draft-dodgers who did not want to go to Vietnam. Now it is a mixture of hippies and surfers. It has a laid back atmosphere. The pacific here is pretty ferocious. The waves much more violent than what I saw in La Jolla California. Here, swimming is out of the question. Signs here explain it all: Q: can you swim here? A: NO! People die every year, do not let it be you. Well, I did not.