Error: I'm afraid this is the first I've heard of a "rss10" flavoured Blosxom. Try dropping the "/+rss10" bit from the end of the URL.
On picasa web’s storage…
Strange coincidence… a few days ago I was complaining about the fact that Picasa Web Album did not give non-US audience the possibility to buy extra storage space if needed. I have just received a mail from Picasa Support (I also complained to them by email) that they have just this possibility is also open now for everybody. So I have to rectify my remark, and I am happy to do so…
I will have to look at my photos on Picasa Web again now. This facility has some nice features, it may very well be a nice alternative to my current, mostly manual way of generating albums on the Web. I do not know yet.
#A simple template for Picasa
I have been using Picasa for a while to organize my photos on my machine, run a local slideshow, etc. It is a good software for that. I generate my photo albums with the HTML export facility of Picasa which also has a simple template system that lets you adapt the output.
I have recently updated my templates to include some javascript to navigate among the
pictures with arrow keys; while I was at it, I also made the output proper and valid XHTML.
I have put the template files to this site,
in the somebody wants to use them: just download the zip file, deflate it in the web\templates
directory of your Picasa installation, and that is it. Picasa will pick up the template automatically from this directory.
Not all my albums use the cleaned up version yet, but you can look at, say, my photos of Amsterdam as an example (I have commented out the copyright statement and the extra calligraphy image from the distribution, you might want to adapt it to your taste…).
By the way, I have also tried out the Picasa Web Album, to see if I could directly use that instead of generating (and uploading) the XHTML myself. I do not think I will use this, though… Although the album feature looks quite nice (see mine, for example), it has a relatively limited amount of space available and one has to pay a yearly fee for some extra space. That, by itself, would be acceptable, but… payment is accepted from US bank account and credit card only! Isn’t that ridiculous? What a parochialism…
#Hivatalos gyásznap
Óriási tehetség volt. Fiatal korában már minden hozzáértő felfigyelt rá, és óriási jövőt jósolt neki. Mind otthoni mind nemzetközi porondon öregbítette Magyarország jó hírét. Aztán, az otthoni politikai körülmények, saját biztonsága és jövője miatt, elhagyta az országot és “nyugaton” telepedett le. Külföldön folytatta karrierjét, óriási népszerűségre tett szert. Elérte mindazt amit az adott területen el lehetett érni: nemzetközi elismertséget, tekintélyt, befolyást, kitüntetéseket, tiszteletet. Soha nem tagadta meg magyarságát, mindenki úgy ismerte, hogy a “magyar”; többet tett a magyar név ismertségéért mint megannyi nagybeszéd vagy hivatalos esemény. Hosszú élet után nemrégiben elhunyt. A szakma sokáig fog még rá emlékezni.
Állami gyásznapot azonban Magyarországon nem hirdettek, a TV-ben vagy a rádióban éppen hogy megemlítették. Az illető nem focista volt, nem jelentett populista népszerűséget a körülötte lévő gyásznap meghirdetése és az azon való résztvétel. Solti Györgynek hívták (pontosabban: Sir Soltinak); elhunyt 1997-ben mint a huszadik század egyik legnagyobb karmesteregyénisége. Teller Edének hívták; elhunyt 2003-ben, mint atomfizikus, az Egyesült Államokbeli tudományos élet egyik legnagyobb befolyású egyénisége. Cziffra Györgynek hívták, elhunyt 1994-ben, mint Liszt Ferenc zongoraműveinek utolérhetetlen előadója, és megannyi fiatal zongoraművész támogatója.
A sort folytathatnám, és csak olyanokat emlegetek itt akiknek halála arra az időre esett, amikor ez az állami gyásznap, mint jogi fogalom, már létezett. Egyedül vagyok-e abban a meggyőződésemben, hogy valami itt nem egészen stimmel?
#Beijing photos
Having spend some vacations lately in Beijing, I also took photos, of course. I have finally worked through all of them and have put a selection of those on the Web (mixed with older photos that I took on previous occasions).
Actually, I also play with the Picasa Web Album site, and I have the same album on my site there. I quite like the Picasa program that I have been using to organize my photos for a while. Actually, I also quite like the Picasa Web Album, and I would love to use that site to store my photos but… there is a limitation on the amount of space that one can use for free and to buy a larger space one has to be in the US. No kidding: if you are not in the US (more exactly, if you do not have a US credit card, I guess), then you cannot buy a larger disc space. This parochialism is really offending.
#Girl with Pearl Earring
I had the pleasure, yesterday evening, to see the movie “Girl With a Pearl Earring” (courtesy of the Belgian TV…). The movie itself is, well, a fiction; I think I actually preferred the original novel by T. Chevalier. What captivated was not really the story but the beautiful work done by the cameraman. Some of the shots were really like the paintings of J.&Vermeer in terms of light, colour, etc.
And the movie reminded me again how absolutely beautiful the original painting of Vermeer is. I remember being so captivated by it at my last visit in the Hague at the Mauritiushuis that I sat down on a couch facing the painting and I just stayed there for a very very long time, completely absorbed by the view. It certainly is, at least for me, one of the highlights of classical Flamish/Dutch painting, and of European painting in general. It was good to see such a movie and remind me again…
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Holland választások érdekes magyar tanulsága (folytatás)
Szeptemberben már írtam a holland választások érdekes példájáról, miszerint a holland tervhivatal végigszámolja a politikai pártok választási igéreteit. Nos, az eljövendő (november 22-i) választások pártigereteit átszámolták, és az eredményeket tegnap hozták nyilvánosságra. És láss csodát: praktikusan az összes párt (jobb és baloldal egyaránt) korrekt számokkal jött, vagyis az általuk javasolt gazdasági számítások reálisak. (Na ja, ha egy pártnál ez nem lenne igaz, elvesztenék megbízhatóságukat a szavazóknál!) Amit a tervihivatal kiszámolt az az, hogy:
És minden párt boldog volt; olyan volt mint egy vizsga, ahol mindenki „átment”. A holland polgár pedig az irányultságok alapján választhat: akar-e több kiadást a társadalmi juttatásokra avagy nem, több környezetvédelmi programot avagy sem, stb.
Nem vagyok naív. Tudom, hogy vannak itt is trükkök, és közelről a leányzó fekvése soha sem olyan szép. De azért álmaimban feldereng egy világ Magyarországon, ahol az MSZP, SZDSZ, MDF és a Fidesz választási igéreteit előzetesen átszámolják független szakértők, és az eredményeket nagy fanfárral nyilvánosságra hozzák hetekkel a választások előtt. Talán kiderült volna, hogy mind Gyurcsány mind az Orbán áprilisi igéretei fantazmagóriák voltak… Álmodni szabad, nem?
(Aki esetleg tud hollandul, vagy egyéb germán nyelvek alapján elboldogul vele, íme egy cikk a sok közül a Volkskrant-ból.)
#BBC News: a disappointment…
I always considered the BBC World News as the best TV News around, and believed in the aura of impartiality that it tries to convey about itself. Until now, that is…
There were some major raws and street fights in my home country, Hungary, at the beginning of this week; these raws actually followed a series of protestations, turmoils, etc, that have been going on for several weeks now. This week’s events were exasperated by the commemoration of the uprising of October 1956. I do not want to go into a detailed (albeit personal) analysis of all these events, it would take too long; suffices it say that, in my view, what happened is the failure of the whole political establishment of the past 15 years (roughly since the regime changes).
However: what the BBC showed in its reports, in the tone of its “Hard Talk” programme, etc, is an incredibly one-sided view of the events, almost fully dictated by the hypocritical attitude of the current opposition parties and personalities. This in spite of the fact that the responsibilities of those in the raws and street fights are also enormous. We have not heard at all about a number of appalling and, frankly, frightening events around the so-called “opposition groups” on the streets of the past few weeks: making a list of all Jewish members of the current government, carrying around a red-white striped flag (the so-called “Árpád stripes”) associated to the worst fascist movements of pre-war Hungary, or that one of the slogans they shouted was “throw the prime minister into the (river) Danube”. The current opposition tries to wipe these under the carpet, which is part of their policies to regain power. It is all understandable though despicable. But why did the so-called objective BBC News did the same?
Oh well… one illusion less, I guess 
Fazil Say’s jazz variations
My son made me discover a Turkish jazz pianist called Fazil Say. I must admit I never heard of him before, but I listened to two of his jazz variations: variations on Mozart’s “alla turca” and a set of Paganini variations. I am usually not fond of jazz transcriptions of classical piano pieces, but these two are really good. Worth listening to them!
The interesting thing is that he is as much a classical as a jazz player. On another entry I found on YouTube he plays Busoni’s transcription of Bach’s wonderful Chacone (originally composed for solo violin). Although I do not like Busoni’s transcription at all (I really prefer the original), it is worth noting when a pianist can play both jazz and classical. It is not frequent (Keith Jarrett comes to my mind who also published CD-s with sonatas of Händel, and also recorded the Well Temperated Clavier).
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