Category: Rants

Mandela on NSS 2014

Mandela on NSS DSC00326

Mandela on NSS 2014

“Hi, oh you didn’t know I would attend?
Well that is quite easy, as I’m here for quite some time already.
And see look down my left hand…they have some girls around that seemingly like
to re enact that famous scene with Marilyn. You know which one I’m referring at, don’t you?

Dutch gouvernment was proud to announce this was a business meeting, so the wifes would stay home. That made it much cheaper for them to organise this venue. Once a Dutchman, always a Dutchman don’t you think? As a consequence I heard the escort services are havining great times tomorrow and Tuesday. And No the Dutch don’t offer any sign of shame on this. After all they invented the red light district, which is one of the main tourist attractions of Amsterdam. Even now whend they have closed shop for many ladies, because over the time they got a bit embarrassed and wanted to shrink the red light district.

For the Dutch it is easy to leave the wives home. Family is not that important anymore in this country. I also heard that they are getting rid of the caretakers of their old people. Also seniority is something that doesn’t count anymore in this country, but for sure they want to check your bin if you have a bit of radio active stuff you want to get rid of. They can use it, because in Petten the Dutch have a little outfit where they make radio active isotopes for medical use…can’t get rid of the process yet, as it is bringing too much profit…”

Taken Aback by the Shutting Down of Clipmarks and Amplify

Clipmarks Shutting Down

Without any Advance Notice

Both Clipmarks and Amplify show the same notice:

Clipmarks (and Amplify with the same notice) is shutting down immediately. We’ve had a wonderful run and we are grateful to everyone for taking the journey with us.

We’ve arranged for all of our users to be granted Clipboard accounts, which we believe is the best place for you to continue clipping the Web. Our existing users will receive an invitation by email, but anyone else can request an invitation directly at www.clipboard.com.

Clipboard will hold Clipmarks’s databases in trust and if there is sufficient interest they will provide a migration tool to import Clipmarks clips into Clipboard.

Please visit the Clipboard Blog for more information about this news.

Now What?

I’ve visited ClipBoard and signed up, but refuse for the moment to clip anything. Especially because Clipboard is very vague about what it is going to do about the data put in trust. Today I visited the blog post again….97 comments thus far. There will be more definitely.

Sure services can and do shut down. Doing so without the possibility to save your activities is inexcusable….

Why Taken Aback?

I was especially taken aback because I enthused about it in Testing Clipmarks.

N.B. In a comment back in October 2009 I said:

Only question is what happens if the original content will be removed – what will happen with the clip -, but I have a feeling it is also stored on the Clipmark server, we will see.

So why moan? Actually because I’m a bit mad – mad on my self- because I had to manually re edited many posts here and on our sister blog, while I knew!

Well it’s done now.

Imagine when Pinterest shuts down, or FaceBook…..

Wanna Sleep in a Hotel Diaper?

Japanese wave after modeling the latest styles of adult diapers during a show in Tokyo Thursday Sept. 25, 2008. The show was organized to display the latest styles of adult diapers and to raise awareness of some of the issues facing the county’s rapidly aging population. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

I found this photo on Open Salon and thought it fit to use as an illustration of what I find one of the worst hotel amenities: plastic under-sheets.

Whenever I enter a hotel room, the first thing I check is the bed. Does the hotelier in question – like many of his colleagues – believe I’m incontinent and need to wear an adult diaper? If I find plastic under-sheets, I take them away and ask for extra towels to put there.

I hate plastic under sheets! They are soo uncomfortable. And you know what? Al matters hoteliers believe can be solved by them, can be solved by double cotton under-sheets, or maybe more correctly put a mattress pad. Much more comfy!

What do you think?

Kudos to the XMas Chef

X-Mass-Chef-P1050817
Yesterday I got an e-mail from a very dear long time friend who invited me for a male only drink between 6.00 pm and 7.30 pm to celebrate his birthday.

I went. There he was. Gray hair and thin to the bone.

We hadn’t been able to catch up for a couple of years while he was being run over legally by the company he used to work for together with the help of a Dutch prosecutor. All legal battles finally lost. The whole story is worse than Kafka. What happened with him proves to me to that Dutch government changed the law after 9/11 too far. Through these changes the Dutch legal system is becoming very much alike the legal system of a Banana Republic. What happened to him basically can happen to everyone.

Lost top job, wife and all possessions.

A Dutch chef of fame lent him his bar for the venue. With a couple of bottles from the supermarket and home made snacks he was able to entertain the friends who didn’t turn their back to him.

Kudos to the Chef who gave him back some of his dignity by this gesture.

Vibeagent drops mask: Hotelicopter – I feel Fooled

helicopter-crash
Helicopter Crash. Photo by Tidewatermuse

In a Press Release dated April 9, 2009 Hotelicopter is presented as a “New” Totally Awesome Hotel Search Engine after “The Hotelicopter had attracted wide media coverage with its April Fools Prank”

Almost everybody in Bloggistan loves the way Hotelicopter was launched as an April Fools prank and then turns out as a hotel booking engine. “Good marketing” they say. I beg to differ.

Although I can appreciate a good joke or to be fooled and certainly can laugh about myself, I feel fooled by Vibe Agent in another way:

First the search engine is not at all new. Basically it is the same search engine as it was three days ago under the name VibeAgent.

Secondly I have been involved as a very active “beta tester” in the building of VibeAgent. I’ve posted two posts about it here and here and referred to it in many other posts.

I wrote:

It is meant to be a community that shares hotel reviews on the one hand and combines that with best price searching on the other hand.

The members are called Agents. They write the reviews. They are unpaid.

VibeAgent has teamed up with an impressive list of travel and hotel portals at the back end, like Price Line, Booking.com and many others.

So: It started out as a community driven hotel search engine. As a sort of mini Tripadvisor, but a bit more advanced. In the meantime Tripadvisor has overhauled its website entirely and became part of Expedia.

Now with this repackaging of the site as Hotelicopter VibeAgent has wiped away its entire own community.

Where are your approximately 5,000 plus Agents, Adam?

Was that part of the deal with TripAdvisor? You being able to show Tripadvisor reviews provided you did away with your own base of hotel reviews?

I’m not amused and I believe many with me.

Update April 9 16.00 hr (04.00PM) local time:

Again this is a matter of lack of communication: See the comments below. Feeling a bit better now.