Today I bought a harddisk/dvd recorder at the Mediamarkt. It can play a lot of DivX formats (not all), it can write on DVD-R and DVD-RW and has a 160 GB harddisk, which is good for 40 hours high quality recording (lower quality is rubbish).
The price was reasonable, but they asked 50 Euro if you want to have it region free. That's ridiculous. So I looked on the Internet and within five minutes I found the 'secret'.



1. Turn on player (without a DVD within)
2. Press Repeat (not Repeat A-B) 5 7 5 3 8 quickly
3. "2" appears on the TV
4. Press 9 for Region-Free
5. "9" appears on the TV
6. Open the tray and close it again

Somewhere else I found this in addition:
Region 1 use 2,9,3,3,4,9
Region 2 use 5,7,5,3,8,9
Region 3 use 5,6,7,3,2,9
Region 4 use 7,6,8,8,4,9
Region 5 use 5,3,8,1,4,9
Region 6 use 2,4,4,6,2,9

Zuiderlucht vroeg me een stukje voor hen te schrijven als Limburgse expat.
Nu heb ik dat altijd een merkwaardig fenomeen gevonden: iemands mening belangwekkend beschouwen vanwege het feit dat hij de provincie verlaten heeft.
In Roermond bestond zelfs een club van ex-buiten-limburg-gangers die zich er op voorstonden dat ze daar een poos hadden weten te overleven.
Maar de redactie was aardig, ze betalen (hoop ik tenminste) en ik kon eindelijk mijn twee verhaaltjes over Jos van Rey, van beroep VVD, kwijt.
Voor wie hem niet kent: bekijk de foto en trek je conclusies.


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I couldn't find a streaming link, so I used a javascript trick:

<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
function reloadMarktImage() {
    var mynow = new Date();
    if (document.images) {
        document.images.Roermond.src = 
	'http://82.93.15.132/cgi-bin/mjpg/video.cgi?' 
	+ mynow.getTime();
    }
}
//-->
</script>
<img src="https://82.93.15.132/cgi-bin/mjpg/video.cgi" 
	name="Roermond" width="484" height="396" 
	onLoad='setTimeout("reloadMarktImage()", 50);'
>

Markus Kison (DE) made an installation with this and three other webcams. See a description and explanation here and on the related link.
See the Markt in Roermond on Google Earth.

In Gallery Dit Eiland


Click on the image to hear them.

And the Maastricht counterpart...

I'm in Wroclaw, Poland, at the 12th International Media Art Biennale WRO 07.



I'll try continue posting next Tuesday.

A new craze is going on: building miniature versions of analogue synthesizers...



Follow the links:
Matrixsynth
Rick Wakeman's keyboards
Barbie @ Music Thing
Synthgear (Moog Modular pdf)

Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned the four-year prison sentence imposed today by a court in Alexandria on Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman for “inciting hatred of Islam” and insulting President Hosni Mubarak in his blog, for which he used the pseudonym of “Kareem Amer.”

“This sentence is a disgrace,” the press freedom organisation said. “Almost three years ago to the day, President Mubarak promised to abolish prison sentences for press offences. Suleiman’s conviction and sentence is a message of intimidation to the rest of the Egyptian blogosphere, which had emerged in recent years as an effective bulwark against the regime’s authoritarian excesses.”

more...