Declining activity

As I suppose you will have noticed the number of posts on this blog have gone down considerably. Because this has many reasons like exams, lots of CDL activities and other things happening, it is probable that I won't be posting a lot here in the next couple of week. Maybe I'll posts some reports from my planned vacation to Croatia here in a month or so. Until that time you've to excuse me for the lack of content on these pages.

End of radio silence

Finally, after more than 20 days another piece about my life on the blog. Last weeks I've just been to busy to post anything, especially last week was planned completely full. It was the CDL Dies week in which we celebrated our 81st anniversary. We organised some activities like a general meeting, an informal drink, a BBQ, an 80s party and a lecture about beer.

Upcoming week will also be planned pretty full as I'll have to make an exam about the history of natural sciences on Tuesday. Thursday will be the second day of work with a new employer (ABAZ). I'll have to drive a client from Leiden to his work and back.

Also on Tuesday we'll be ending our Dies week with a Go-kart race. In this race we'll be competing with 5 teams for about 2 hours. So that's all for this update, maybe I'll post some pictures of our Belgium trip soon, although I haven't got any right now.

Impression: Belgium 2006

In anticipation to the upcoming pictures from the CDL trip to Belgium of 2007 I'll already post some pictures taken during last years journey.

Picture 1 Picture 2
Picture 3 Picture 4

BIL Yearbook

Again, I would like to publish a piece I wrote for a yearbook. Just like I did with the Japie Almanak. This time the piece is written for BIL, which is our sister association for (government) administration studies in Leiden. Again it's in dutch, sorry again for the foreign visitors.

De bèta en de barkruk

Bij de combinatie van barkrukken en netwerken denkt menig lid van BIL natuurlijk gelijk aan de bedrijvenborrels die BIL ieder jaar weer weet te organiseren. Het is echter niet erg interessant om te gaan schrijven over iets wat veel van de lezers van deze almanak al weten, en dus ga ik het over een hele andere boeg gooien. De gemiddelde bèta verschilt namelijk zo in denkwijze met BIL leden, dat ze vaak eerder denken aan een Internetcafé dan aan jullie borrels. Internet café’s zijn, door aanwezigheid van barkrukken en een ultiem netwerk naar de rest van de wereld, dé plek voor een sociaal uitgehongerde bèta voor zijn speurtocht naar contacten bij bedrijven en andere academisch geschoolde wetenschappers.

Door het ontbreken van een echt Internetcafé in de Gorlaeus Laboratoria zijn wij bèta’s echter genoodzaakt ergens anders onze contacten op te bouwen. Het bijhouden van die contacten kan in de borrelbunker, de ondergrondse trots van ieder lid van het Chemisch Dispuut Leiden. In deze chic ingerichte kroeg heeft de barkruk zelf ook een zeer belangrijke taak bij het leggen van netwerken. Eén van de mooie aspecten van een barkruk is namelijk dat deze een hoge zit heeft, hierdoor kom je op gelijke hoogte te zitten met de bar. Dit maakt het mogelijk te netwerken met die leuke barvrouw uit het tappersgilde der chemici of met de jongen die altijd naar je knipoogt tijdens colleges Moleculaire Quantum Mechanica.

Uiteindelijk komt het er bij zowel alpha’s en bèta’s op neer dat zij zich geen leven meer zonder barkruk zouden kunnen voorstellen. Zonder dit object van vermaak zouden wij namelijk gedoemd zijn tot het zitten op de grond of aan tafeltjes. Dit wetende moet voor iedereen duidelijk zijn dat de uitvinding van de barkruk past in het rijtje van uitvindingen als: het wiel, de drukpers, de Erlenmeyer, de microchip en het Internet.

US Navy: Cold Fusion possible

The American Navy has published an article about realising Cold Fusion in their laboratories in the scientific magazine Naturwissenschaften. Why this article, which tends to be the second right step to solving our energy problems, is published in a magazine with an impact factor below 2 remains unclear. The navy says they have used and adapted the experiment done by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann back in 1989. Revolutionary about Cold Fusion is the fact that reactors don't need to be warmed to 15-150 million degrees Celsius, but operate in room temperature. Now it's time to wait for the results from peer reviews.

End of holiday

Well, what can I say, holidays are over and I've had a great time in Leuven, Belgium. The journey there went smooth and the first day was very relaxed.
The second day (Wednesday) we went to InBev, this is the largest brewery in Belgium. There we became acquainted with the brewing process and the different kinds of beer that were brewed in Leuven.
On Thursday we went to the Leuven Catholic University, where we got some information about studying there and a tour through the building. This tour reminded us that our situation isn't as bad as we think because most of the labs in Leuven don't even have windows.
On the last day, Friday, we went to the swimming pool, it was very nice to be able to relax after the long walks we had made during our visit to Leuven. After a somewhat large lunch we started our journey home, another 3-4 hours traveling by train were ahead of us.

Next week I'll have to try to re-enter the routine I had left for a few days. I'm just hoping it will be easy, although I've got some doubts about that. Also I'll be having an interview for a job as a student driver, and the CDL is organising a lecture by Prof. Dr. C. Ronda.

Belgium here I come!

Next week I'll be leaving for Belgium for 4 days. It's a trip organised by the CDL and we'll be visiting Leuven University and a brewery in Leuven. Also we'll be heading downtown to check out the longest road with taverns of Europe.

The rest of the CDL will be going to Groningen, a city in the northern part of the Netherlands. There they'll also visit the University and some institutes like TNO, a dutch government general research institute. So next week or so no update on this site, and maybe some nice stories afterwards!