B10[mg]

Recently, there were some troubles between $haron Osbourne (yes, manager and wife of Ozzy) and Iron Maiden. This all happened at Ozzfest (note: I haven't been there, I just follow the news).

A lot of things happened (or so it seems):

• Iron Maiden crossed out on T-Shirts
• The band gets pelted with eggs, PA is sabotaged and "Ozzy"-chants are heard
• Photo's of band removed from Ozzfest website
• Sharon makes crazy statement
• Ozz-organization denies Kelly Osbourne's involvement in egg throwing
• Maiden's label makes a statement
• Maiden's manager makes a statement
• Sharon writes open letter to Maiden's manager
• Bruce Dickinson speaks to The Sun Online
• Sharon admits daughter was involved to Kerrang

... and the saga continues. Listen to the audio file to hear what happened at the end of Maiden's set.

Now there's even http://www.boycottsharon.com/, dedicated to this drama. The site wants to publish a letter in Billboard Magazine in which they claim that Sharon shouldn't have battled Iron Maiden on stage, when 45,000 people paid $150 to see them (note, Wacken Open Air is only €65.00 and way more interesting).

I have but one thing to say: Up The Irons!

A few months ago, I installed the software of Project Honeypot and finally it paid off (B-O-K was faster ;-).

Regardless of how the rest of your day goes, here's something to be happy about -- today a honey pot you installed successfully identified a previously unknown email harvester (IP: 80.87.67.168).

The harvester seems to be from Ghana and has a mail server associated from South Africa (66.18.69.143). I am so honored to find out that people in Africa are "reading" my blog ;-)

Well, my day was looking good already, for I will see Marduk tonight, but extra good news is always nice.

Through Kurt's blog, I found out about Nanoblogger GUI.

The rationale behind this, according to its author is:

...sometimes [it's] annoying to use a command line programm instead of a gui because on each use:

-you need to start a terminal window :-) ...
-you have to change to the nanoblogger directory...
-you need to know the program parameters...
-you must type a lot of characters...

Although the screenshot looks nice and shiny, I truly doubt its usefulness.

Launching a terminal, the first annoyance shouldn't be a problem. Most nerds/geeks have a few opened already. Besides, the GUI has to be launched somehow too, which is probably a more time consuming process than a simple terminal.

The second annoyance just isn't correct. I've been using NanoBlogger for some time now, and as long as you configure it right (BLOG_DIR setting in $HOME/.nb.conf), there is no need to dive into the blog directory. Of course, the `nb` executable should be in your $PATH.

Like with every command line application, "you need to know the program parameters", but invoking `nb` without any, will give you the options and a few examples. People have no problem remembering `tar xzvf <file>`, so `nb -c 1 -a` shouldn't be too hard to remember either. And if it is too hard to remember, use an `alias`.

Last but not least, you "must type a lot of characters". Again, I have no clue where this comes from. `nb -c 1 -a` doesn't look like that many characters to me. Launching the GUI takes "a lot of characters" too.

I appreciate people trying to improve software, or generating new code, yet I like it even better if there's any usefulness involved. People have been suggesting web interfaces already too, but why then use NanoBlogger, the BASH blogger? If you enjoy GUIs better than CLIs, go for LiveJournal, Blogger.com, B2evolution, Movable Type, and all the GUIs that have been created for them ;-)

As suggested before, I'd really like to see a centralized database for AdBlock.

I've thought about writing a FireFox Extension for it, yet my lack of time and laziness prevented me from doing so. And being lazy pays off now and then, for now there is Adblock Filterset.G Updater. Still I'd think the name ABCD (AdBlock Centralized Database) would be nicer/funnier, but ok, it seems to work and that's what counts ;-)

Now let's see how good it really is...

I can talk on this album for a long time, but it's not that necessary. We all know Opeth and with their new album, they don't really change the style they've invented. Just another wonderful album (that takes a few listening sessions to get used to, like always).

Label: Roadrunner Records

For some time now, I run my Gmail Invitation Spooler and at this moment, 6576 people have used it to get an invitation for the evil Gmail service.

After first launching it, I got a lot of emails requesting an invitation. Sure, if you're new to the invitation stuff and you don't read anything on the page, like All you have to do is to leave your email address in the box below and hit the submit button, I can see you send an email to the author of the page.

I always thought that the explanation of what to do was sufficient, but with this script I have attracted a branch of Internet L-users that are new to me: the people who never read. I presume these are the same people as the ones who click on the OK-button -without reading the text- whenever some error message pops up on their computer and afterwards ask me what the hell happened and how to fix it.

So I've added the text DO NOT ASK ME TO SEND YOU AN INVITATION, USE THE FORM ABOVE! in big red letters. Assuming that this would be something to catch the morons attention, it still failed. On a daily base I still receive their cries for help. Of course not in a friendly, polite way, nah either a blank message, or stuff like -and I quote:

"sf"
"who is this"
"WOULD LIKE TO SEND AN INVITATION TO address protected"
"I want to have an other GMAIL Invitation !"
"SEND ME GMAIL"
"must have gmail invite"

But sometimes, they do get polite (although I don't see why he needs my Gmail account):

Respected sir,

I am a system Engineer and I intrested to test new softwares. I need your Gmail account for testing.

and:

Dear sir,

Request you to kind send me invitation to join GMAIL to my following E.Mail address address protected

Some people don't get the invitation spooler at all though:

Please join us in Gmail. It's better then others, be sure.

Yes, that could be classified as an invitation too.

So, to conclude, I've altered the page to make it even more clear that people should not mail me to request an invitation by changing Send your invitations to gmail@swal.org into Send your invitations (so NOT requests) to gmail@swal.org. Let's see if people can finally read, or if I just should send the entire script to /dev/null heaven...

For some time now, I run my Gmail Invitation Spooler and at this moment, 6576 people have used it to get an invitation for the evil Gmail service.

After first launching it, I got a lot of emails requesting an invitation. Sure, if you're new to the invitation stuff and you don't read anything on the page, like All you have to do is to leave your email address in the box below and hit the submit button, I can see you send an email to the author of the page.

I always thought that the explanation of what to do was sufficient, but with this script I have attracted a branch of Internet L-users that are new to me: the people who never read. I presume these are the same people as the ones who click on the OK-button -without reading the text- whenever some error message pops up on their computer and afterwards ask me what the hell happened and how to fix it.

So I've added the text DO NOT ASK ME TO SEND YOU AN INVITATION, USE THE FORM ABOVE! in big red letters. Assuming that this would be something to catch the morons attention, it still failed. On a daily base I still receive their cries for help. Of course not in a friendly, polite way, nah either a blank message, or stuff like -and I quote:

"sf"
"who is this"
"WOULD LIKE TO SEND AN INVITATION TO address protected"
"I want to have an other GMAIL Invitation !"
"SEND ME GMAIL"
"must have gmail invite"

But sometimes, they do get polite (although I don't see why he needs my Gmail account):

Respected sir,

I am a system Engineer and I intrested to test new softwares. I need your Gmail account for testing.

and:

Dear sir,

Request you to kind send me invitation to join GMAIL to my following E.Mail address address protected

Some people don't get the invitation spooler at all though:

Please join us in Gmail. It's better then others, be sure.

Yes, that could be classified as an invitation too.

So, to conclude, I've altered the page to make it even more clear that people should not mail me to request an invitation by changing Send your invitations to gmail@swal.org into Send your invitations (so NOT requests) to gmail@swal.org. Let's see if people can finally read, or if I just should send the entire script to /dev/null heaven...

http://talk.google.com/ opens with:

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free anytime, anywhere in the world.

Is this another noble act of philanthropy, or is it yet another attempt of being evil? Over time, I have altered my views on the Google empire. It started out with the awesome search engine without flashy banners and crap. Wonderful. Then all the privacy concerns and other evil things started piling up. Gmail made me rethink the whole Google deal and with the arrival of the Google IM I am back to my Google is Evil stance.

Why-oh-why does the world need yet another Instant Messenger? Aren't ICQ, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and whatever other protocols are out there enough? Apparently not to Google. They've decided to launch their own Jabber client (as if there aren't enough of those either).

As far as I can see now, there's absolutely nothing that cannot be found in other IM clients, accept for, I assume, saving all the data you send to other (l)users.

$ chmod 666 Google

http://talk.google.com/ opens with:

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free anytime, anywhere in the world.

Is this another noble act of philanthropy, or is it yet another attempt of being evil? Over time, I have altered my views on the Google empire. It started out with the awesome search engine without flashy banners and crap. Wonderful. Then all the privacy concerns and other evil things started piling up. Gmail made me rethink the whole Google deal and with the arrival of the Google IM I am back to my Google is Evil stance.

Why-oh-why does the world need yet another Instant Messenger? Aren't ICQ, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and whatever other protocols are out there enough? Apparently not to Google. They've decided to launch their own Jabber client (as if there aren't enough of those either).

As far as I can see now, there's absolutely nothing that cannot be found in other IM clients, accept for, I assume, saving all the data you send to other (l)users.

$ chmod 666 Google

http://talk.google.com/ opens with:

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free anytime, anywhere in the world.

Is this another noble act of philanthropy, or is it yet another attempt of being evil? Over time, I have altered my views on the Google empire. It started out with the awesome search engine without flashy banners and crap. Wonderful. Then all the privacy concerns and other evil things started piling up. Gmail made me rethink the whole Google deal and with the arrival of the Google IM I am back to my Google is Evil stance.

Why-oh-why does the world need yet another Instant Messenger? Aren't ICQ, Jabber, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and whatever other protocols are out there enough? Apparently not to Google. They've decided to launch their own Jabber client (as if there aren't enough of those either).

As far as I can see now, there's absolutely nothing that cannot be found in other IM clients, accept for, I assume, saving all the data you send to other (l)users.

$ chmod 666 Google

The first full album by the Dutch Detonation ( "An Epic Defiance"), was labeled The Successor of Dark Tranquility's "The Gallery" album and I could say I had to agree. Where Dark Tranquility left that type of music, the guys of Detonation picked up and continued. It could well be considered an album Dark Tranquility should have made.

Eagerly I awaited the new album. Usually great albums are followed by less good albums, for it's really hard to get better than the expectations. Nevertheless, Detonation continues to amaze me. Skilled musicians, great riffs and the awesome songs make this album a true gem!

The Dark Tranquility, At the Gates influences are still there but now I also seem to hear a faint Opeth influence. Although influenced, Detonation is far from a copycat!

If you like old style Swedish metal like Dark Tranquility, just buy this album. You will not get disappointed, I promise.

Label: Osmose Productions

Finally, 60 years too late, the Netherlands officially accepts August 17^th as the Independence Day of Republik Indonesia.

It even looks like the Dutch minister of foreign affairs tried to apologize:

Ben Bot, who is on a three-day visit to Indonesia, said that the large-scale deployment of military forces put the Netherlands "on the wrong side of history."

Yet a real official apology still seems too hard. I wonder how many decades we will have to wait for that...

Anyways, to all Indonesian people: selamat hari kemerdekaan !
(or as I would say in my broken Bahasa Indonesia: selamat republik!)

Yes, B10m will get married. During my vacation in Indonesia, I have asked Sandra to become my wife and (on top of the Borobudur) she said Yes.

Lately we have been planning stuff and yes, the wedding will around the 5^th or 6^th of June, 2006.

Let's party!

Update: the location has now been confirmed!
The wedding will take place on 06-06-06!

I've never really gotten Hypocrisy. Standard, straight-to-the-point death metal with no exceptions, yet also not too boring to completely ignore.

Virus, the new album, is exactly like we're used to from the band. Nothing special, nothing fancy, big long bark to start the first track off, yet also pleasant to listen too.

A good recording, no doubt, then again, we're dealing with Peter Tägtgren, so one must expect a decent production.

All in all, don't expect too much new. If you like the previous albums, you will probably have no problems with this nice release either.

Label: Nuclear Blast

Yet another bug was found and I deemed it necessary to patch it straight away, so here we go, version 1.03 of HTML::BBCode has been released.

Subscribing to a few RSS feeds can be nice, for you might interesting stuff. I subscribed to the new uploads on CPAN feed not too long ago and have seen some fine gems pass by.

Yesterday I found Email::StripMIME. It basically takes care of something merlyn took care of in his column, A MIME is a terrible thing to waste.

Yes, I cannot stand HTML mail and this module strips that sort of stuff nicely, leaving a readable mail left. Well done, Pete!

People actually seem to be using HTML::BBCode and therefor noticing bugs. Other fine people then seem to patch it, leaving it easy for me to release a new version of this crappy Perl module.

... and thus it happened. Check your local CPAN mirror for a fresh copy of version 1.02.

Although the weather wasn't too well, Wacken Open Air 2005 was pretty cool again. I've seen bad weather at festivals before, but now it was just simply weird. Five minutes of quite some heat (get your sunblock out) were followed by five minutes of freezing wind, being followed a three minute rain. And it went on and on like that!

Regardless of the weather, the bands were fun and so was the good metal'ish party atmosphere at both the festival and camping sites.

My top three of favorite gigs:

1. Bloodbath (with Mike Åkerfeldt!)
2. Dissection
3. Marduk

Too bad I couldn't see Samael and Endstille, for they started playing too late, or I fell asleep too early ;)

Time to order tickets for Wacken Open Air 2006!

Although the weather wasn't too well, Wacken Open Air 2005 was pretty cool again. I've seen bad weather at festivals before, but now it was just simply weird. Five minutes of quite some heat (get your sunblock out) were followed by five minutes of freezing wind, being followed a three minute rain. And it went on and on like that!

Regardless of the weather, the bands were fun and so was the good metal'ish party atmosphere at both the festival and camping sites.

My top three of favorite gigs:

1. Bloodbath (with Mike Åkerfeldt!)
2. Dissection
3. Marduk

Too bad I couldn't see Samael and Endstille, for they started playing too late, or I fell asleep too early ;)

Time to order tickets for Wacken Open Air 2006!

"Fuck Hell!" is what Endstille likes to proclaim and the music underlines this statement. Raw, keyboard-less black metal that must do good to metal fans who yearn for more Panzer Division.

The album grabs you and doesn't let go fast. Very well done. Can't wait to see them at Wacken!

Label: Twilight Vertrieb