Atheist, technopagan and vegan.

I've created this post with Publii. Actually, the last set of posts here are made with it. My site used to run on Wordpress. Wordpress started out a great system to do things, but lately - at least for me - it turned into a slow, cumbersome hassle to maintain, log into and keep safe. Even an insignificant site like this one needed the Wordfence plugin, because of over 300 attacks and hacking / injection…

Twitter The Twitter exodus is a fact. At the same time, Mastodon is a puzzle. Many people are scared. So many servers, waiting lists, shit stuff, don't-knows and more. "Mastodon" is a collection of computers that are interconnected. So if you join e.g. Mastodon.world, you can still talk to everyone on all other servers, like Mastodon.ai, writing.exchange or toot.community. Yes, these are actual names on actual servers. You find subjects by looking for them through…

I just have to leave this here.

I've been thinking. Again. If the Christian god created the earth (Genesis 1), as did Allah of the Islam (Koran verse 7:54), and probably a host of other gods (all of them fake except 'the real one' of course), then there are a few weird things happening "around us". Science has shown us that the universe is pretty big. In the words of Douglas Adams, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Space is big.

In Ancient Greece, Socrates had a great reputation of wisdom. One day, someone came to find the great philosopher and said to him: "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?" A moment, replied Socrates. "Before you tell me, I would like to test you the three sieves." "The three sieves?" "Yes," continued Socrates. "Before telling anything about the others, it's good to take the time to filter what you mean. I call…

What? A new toy for the theremin? Why is that? When I made the “Bridge over troubled water” recording, I noticed that there were a few sounds and effects I wanted to add that weren’t there. The synth-box by E-Harmonix wasn’t up to the task so I asked around and I found this. The Zoom A1 Four. It’s nifty! Someone suggested an alternative, the Korg Pandora Stomp box, but that wasn’t available anywhere. Okay, except…

I had to do it. It took a long time before I got it right, then I had to work hard on getting the OpenTheremin to cooperate, but it happened in the end. It's not perfect, but I'm satisfied with this first attempt to do a mix with 2 different theremins. For this video I used my Moog Etherwave Standard, and the OpenTheremin v4. I also used the karaoke track for the music as found…

A little while ago I bought another theremin. This time an OpenTheremin V4. What is an OpenTheremin? It's a very simple, no frills, yet quite versatile little (and affordable) theremin that you can either put together yourself, or (as I did) buy the Deluxe version that comes pre-assembled. You can find more info on the OpenTheremin at GaudiShop. Playing the OpenTheremin is world apart from the Etherwave, but once you figure it out (and you…

I listen to the podcast "Naked Security" from Sophos.com. Today they had a(nother) great reason to start using a password manager. These are programs to manage your passwords. Yes, duh. But they do that in a clever way. They generate big, complex passwords that you can't remember, like 3jGrkVvaVNJ$Kv*JRCZsg (note, you will be quizzed on this one later on haha). You just remember 1 main password to unlock the password manager (and optionally use a…

Yes, I think more people (okay, all people) should become vegans. If, for some reason, "you can't" be vegan, at least eat fewer animals to start with, to lessen the suffering. That being said, let's try the start of a story about aliens. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Brugorians. Not that this is already clear in these few words… Chapter 1. John pushed his plate away. That T-bone steak had been too much, he'd…