Welkom in het brein van Martijn!

I’m quite fond of a free program called Synergy, which allows you to share a keyboard and mouse between several computers. In case you’re wondering why someone would be operating more than one computer at a time: because it’s cool. Really, if you need to ask you’re so uncool it’s scary. You should probably go and iron something.

Synergy is cool because you can even run different operating systems and still have just 1 mouse and keyboard to control them. Plus, it makes your office look like the bridge of the freakin’ Enterprise and if that doesn’t get you laid I will eat my laptop. Really, chicks dig multiple monitor setups. Just trust me on this.

It’s free software and you can get it here:

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Unfortunately, it was written and maintained by the sort of geeks who think nothing of starting and configuring software via the command line, which is about as userfriendly as a good swift kick in the meat-and-two-veg department. The Windows package is ok, but for OSX (That’s Mac to you and me) configuration is a bit of a nightmare. What you need is a GUI: a Graphical User Interface. This basically adds a menu to the software, making it easier to work with.

There are 3 GUI’s available. 2 of them didn’t work for me.

1. OSX Synergy GUI canbe found at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/osxsynergygui/

It does work, but you have to restart it manually each time you want to use it. Which more or less defeats the purpose of using Synergy, since you’ll still need a second mouse and keyboard to do that. Plus, it’s alpha-software.

2. Synergy OSX, didn’t work at all for me although it looked very pretty.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/osxsynergygui/

3. SynergyKM: This is the best by far. It contains Synergy itself so you won’t have to install that first. It’s also to be found on SourceForge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/synergykm

So… get number 3. But not 2. Or 1. Or 1 AND 2. That would just be silly. Just get 3. The bottom one. Yeah. That one rocks.

This has been a public service announcement for fellow ner… cool people.

To the PepsiCo Company
Attn. Mr. Indra Nooyi
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577

Amsterdam, July 31st 2008

Dear Mr. Nooyi,

I write this letter to make an appeal to you, as President of PepsiCo, not just for myself but also for millions if not billions of others. People who encounter Pepsi Cola wherever they go, be it in bars of restaurants, in cinema’s or holiday resorts. People who, like me, can’t stand the stuff.

I’m sure you’re aware there is a product out there that tastes much, much better than Pepsi. It is called Coca Cola and, like your product, it’s available in both regular and light. Both versions of these are far more palatable than Pepsi or Diet Pepsi, which results in the Coca Cola being the market leader.

In my local supermarket, in fact in any supermarket I visit, I will find large sections reserved for bottles of Coke. That’s because a lot of people prefer it. Sure, there’s Pepsi too because given the size of the worlds population there will always be a few people who have no sense of taste or don’t drink cola themselves and go for the cheaper brands to serve their guests. You can’t blame them for that.

However, I can and do blame you for the fact that you and your distributors seem to have a stranglehold on the beverage selection in an awful lot of venues. I know there’s such a thing as free choice and I can choose not to visit such an establishment or even just stick to orange juice, but the fact is I LIKE Coca Cola and I WANT Coca Cola. You are in essence violating my right to my favorite drink! I’m beginning to resent you for this. It seems like any time I’m out and enjoying myself, PepsiCo Inc. company is there to spoil my enjoyment.

Like yourself, I work hard, so when I do have time to relax I do it properly. I book a room in a nice bed & breakfast, take the wife out for dinner and a movie, you know, the works. I’m in cities I don’t usually visit where I have no idea which venues serve proper Cola or Pepsi. So after having spent all this money it’s really quite depressing to be unable to purchase my favorite beverage and instead being confronted with a bottle of Pepsi. I resent that. It’s not just that I dislike your product, but you’re also actively pissing me off. I’ve spent a few hundred euro’s on that weekend break and now what should have been a good meal is spoiled for not having a proper drink to go with it. How is that fair?

Here’s what I propose: stop producing Pepsi.

Now I know what you’ll say: ‘But we’re actually selling this stuff to cheapskates and business that have no choice! Jobs will be lost! People who don’t know or care about cola will, when asked, even claim they prefer it to Coke!’

I’ve taken this into account. Heres the plan: all you need to do to preserve these jobs is to ask the Coca Cola company to provide your production facilities with the syrup used to produce Coke! It’s what they ship to their own plants worldwide anyway, where they simply add water and carbonate it. Why not do the same? You can even stick with the same labels because the people who now drink Pepsi won’t know any better and the people who drink Coke I’m sure will breathe a sigh of relief.

You’re very welcome. Best wishes in your negotiations with the Coke-people and tell them I said hi.

Martijn Warnas
The Netherlands

It’s about time someone nailed this one. This is a parody based on ‘Nine Million Bicycles’ and the iPhone hype.

(Dutch: Jawel, een nieuw liedje in de serie ‘Liedjes Om Te Wissen.’ Het is een parodie op ‘Nine Million Bicycles’ en de iPhone-hype. Hyvertjes kunnen pas luisteren als ze doorklikken naar mijn echte weblog.)

DOWNLOAD THE SONG HERE.

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LYRICS

There are nine hundred people in this queue
that’s a bitch
I’ve been here for a long time
but I have to buy an iPhone just for you

When I buy one I sign up a long time
for 2 years
and I’m paying through my nose
but it’s worth it to avoid your god damned tears

It’s kind of obscene, all that money I’ll spend
when people are starving
and it’s just a stupid Phone in the end

I’ll admit that this thing is kinda cool
black and smooth
though I feel that it’s uncouth
’cause in Africa this cash could build a school

(instrumental break)

Gesproken:

So let’s see, you have to sign up for two years, you pay 200 bucks for the phone, 39 bucks a month for voice and 20 bucks a month for data, oh and five bucks for sending text-messages. So that works out to… um… 1.975 dollars over the next two years. Assuming you don’t go over your minutes. For a phone. And the line goes round the block. What’s that about a recession you were saying?

But you want an iPhone
so I’m in this line
though these people are creepy
and they say they hate Windows all the time

Well they ran out of iPhones I’ve been told
wipe my tears
I’ve been catching quite a cold
and I know that you’ll be screaming in my ears

Yeah baby, it’s me. Now, don’t yell but… they’re out of stock. I said don’t yell at me! I’ve been here for almost 12 hours. C’mon baby, how about I get you the most expensive Nokia AND a GPS-navigator AND an iPod touch? What do you mean I’m being cheap?! That’s STILL a lot of money! But not as much as an Iphone, true…