www.tjeerd.net

Today I came along the Home Project site, which is all about our world and the environmental impact we have on our world. Very nice sceneries and places on earth are shown, but also the negative impacts on the environment we have as human beings. It reminds me a bit of Al Gore’s film, be it that Al Gore shows a lot of statistical slides about environmental problems. For a lot of people that film was a good start to get some insight about things going on on our planet. Not all was true perhaps, but it was a good thing to start the discussion.

Anyway, the Home Project is nice free documentary available on Youtube (even in HD) which you should see. Speaking about the environment, I think we will get there in the end and that this century we can/should change a lot of things and use less resources. Or at least use more renewable energy sources. But hopefully this project will again freshen up people’s minds.

And now go to The Home Project site to see the documentary.

I like jazz music, it is relaxing and it is ideal background music. The last few weeks I heard a nice song on the radio, but I didn’t know who was the artist. Now I found out it is Herbie Hancock with the song “Cantaloupe Island”. I knew him from some other songs, especially from a strange videoclip made for the song Rock It. So I didn’t know that he made Cantaloupe Island. Sit and enjoy the following videoclip:

Since two days I really miss my favourite radiostation, it’s now officially out of the ether. Immediately I looked into alternatives. One alternative is to connect the stereoinstallation via coax to the cable, where Arrow Jazz still broadcasts. Unfortunately the installation doesn’t have a coax input. Then my gadget-instinct showed up and I searched for streaming audioplayers on the internet. This means you can listen to thousands of internet radiostations and the most important thing, I can also listen to Arrow Jazz again. After some research I decided to buy the Logitech Squeezebox Classic (actually manufactured by SlimDevices) at RAF (Utrecht).

This device is elegant, small, low power (only several watts) and very functional. It contains a vacuum fluorescent display with a 320×20 resolution which can display the songname, RSS-feeds or a VU-meter for example. Furthermore it contains a Wifi-receiver for the internet audiostreams and several audio outputs (analog RCA, digital optical, digital coax and headphone mini jack). The nice thing about the device for me is that there is a big open source community behind it (Wiki, forums). The company (SlimDevices) is really open about the design and what components are in it. Furthermore you can also get plugins for custom visualizations.

Finally you can also control the device (volume, change radiostation, add RSS-feeds) via internet or via the remote that comes with it. Anyway, I/we am/are very happy with it. The old radio is now stored somewhere upstairs.

My only favourite radiostation seems to be in financial problems. Really a pity, because they broadcast a really wide range of great jazz music. It’s for me a very good relaxation radio station. About a year ago I said that Arrow Jazz FM would be the only radiostation where I’d pay money for their good music, but you couldn’t donate money to them at that moment. A few weeks ago however it was in the news that Arrow Jazz FM has financial problems and perhaps would disappear. You can donate money and if you pay more than 15 euros you get a free Arrow Jazz FM CD. So I immediately transferred some money to them in the hope that it makes a little differerence and that at least the radiostation won’t disappear. In the meanwhile I am waiting for my CD, which I haven’t received yet …