School is Starting

Next week, school is about to begin for me. The last year of college in Amsterdam if everything goes right of course! Luckely teaching starts for me the next week so I still have some spare time! It will be my first year teaching all by myself (I have thought alone before) as I will have to run everything. I will have to do everything myself from yearplanning and keeping track of students. I am actually looking forward to it even though I am a bit nervous but I am lucky with my mentor and I know I can always ask other teachers for help.

I only have to do my minor and a final paper. I don't net know what it will be about but I really hope it can be something on biology in stead of teaching! Not that I don't like teaching but I don't find it as interesting as biology. I want to do something with spiders and I hope I will be able to do that!

God Can't Die...?

In my last article about Steve Jobs his health I said I thought he was going to die and some people took offense by that (God can’t die...?) so I am now going to post a follow up on that story. I don’t believe Steve Jobs is going to die, just maybe only giving the rudder to someone else. I wanted to see how people would react to my article and I must say I got some interesting responses. What was really weird is that they rather e-mail me then posting a comment (chickens). I still believe Apple won’t be the same if Steve jobs left the helm but it isn’t an impossible situation and I wouldn’t be surprised if he let someone else take control of the firm. When? I don’t know, I can’t read minds and I can’t see the future.

About Steve Jobs being sick, well I do think he is. After reading through articles about Islet cell cancer and the cure for it. Which basically means cutting a piece out of the pancreas to remove the cancer that formed in the Islet cells (see picture above). These cells make insulin and by having cancer in them and removing them the production of insulin reduces. Which actually means you become diabetic. I haven’t been able to find anything about it in relation to Steve Jobs personal situation but almost all of the patients treated for this type of cancer are diabetic after the surgery. This would explain his thin look he has now, simply because he lives a stressful and busy life. When you just got diabetic you have to change your life around it and your body has to get used to not having insulin when it calls for it but when you take insulin pills or inject yourself with insulin. The treatment for diabetes is getting better and better but it still is life changing. It’s very hard on the body and you get tired quickly, that could be the reason why he didn’t do the whole keynote by himself or maybe he wanted to give the other guys a chance to talk to the Apple fans. I thought they all did great even though they don’t have Steve Jobs flair (which they shouldn’t try to copy or it seems so fake) but they did a great job non the less.

Snape's Worst Memory

I always check http://www.mugglenet.com for my latest Potter news and as a big fan of Snape (Good or Evil) I am really looking forward to the Order Of The Phoenix movie. Especially the scene of Snape's worst memory so I was very happy to see the pictures where they are filming that scene. The photos were taken on July 24th at Blenheim Palace and you can clearly see Daniel Radcliff and the young snape actor: Alec Hopkins. I can't wait to see this movie and I hope the trailer will be out around Christmas for the first look of the movie.

Shelob Has Something Big

I made a funny video today with my mobile (it's not the best of quality) about my tarantula called Shelob. I gave her a big grasshopper to eat and after a big fight she finally managed to kill it. But as always she rather wanted to eat it in her coconut and tried to get it inside. It's just a little bit to big to fit through the opening. Here she just got it through

Divination On Steve Jobs:

I See A Grim:

I hate to do this to the Apple fans but I am going to make an eery prediction, I think Steve Jobs is dying! Not like a “dying breed” or “yeah everyone dies” but I mean within 5 years there will be sad news from the Apple compound! Of course I can’t look in the future but when I saw him giving his Keynote last monday I was shocked at how he looked and acted. He can put on a good show (and probably would have been a good actor the way he gets people enthusiastic over little things) but he never gave his keynote with all three of his department heads. Maybe he was just sick that week and didn’t feel like he could do it all by himself but it did strike me that the other three were well prepared and it didn’t seem like a last minute change of plans. Anyway I was more concerned when I saw his “thin, almost gaunt” appearance and unusually “listless” delivery of the Keynote. It isn’t like the perfectionist Jobs to not give 100% for his Apple.

Earlier Health Problems:

On July 31, 2004, Jobs underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. He had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer, known as islet (Langerhans in Dutch) cell neuroendocrine tumor, which is far less aggressive than the usual form of pancreatic cancer. It did not require chemotherapy or radiation therapy. But still what people didn’t report is if it was functional or non-functional Inslet cell cancer. But as he didn’t need radiation or chemo I will guess non-functional. They also didn’t report that the overall 5-year survival rate in all patients with nonfunctional pancreatic Islet cell cancer approaches 50%. So only half of the treated people live more than 5 years after treatment (based on a certain treatment and how far the cancer had already developed, there are forms where the survival rate is 100%). I’m not a doctor and I don’t know anything about Jobs cancer state, it does shock me and it just makes me hope it is the other type.

Maybe I Am Just Wrong:

It could just be that Jobs is getting old and just like Bill Gates want to step down a little and enjoy some form of retirement. Maybe he was just looking for the best candidate to take over the more stressful parts of being the CEO. Or he could just have the flu like many others around this time of year! There are many explanations that could fit and there is a good chance I am just plain wrong. I especially hope I am wrong because I think Apple will never be the same when Jobs leaves, even if it is in capable hands. 


Apple Is Going For The Kill

Yesterday there was a new World Wide Developers Conference by Apple. Of course Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple) gave his famous keynote! It started with the famous Ads they have online: TV Ads witch made a lot of fun of Vista and you can see it here:Keynote start Steve started of course by telling first of all the successes they had this year with top being that 50% of people who bought a Mac last quarter were new to the Mac. Then he started with 2 new products: The new Mac pro and the Xserve, which are really fast and super!

After that they really started to poke fun at Vista by comparing what Microsoft had copied of Apple. It was hilarious and if you want to see it you should click here to see the WWDC. Then they started to show Leopard, the new OS. To compare, this is the sixth major release from Apple since 2002 and Windows users have been waiting since 2002 for Vista. They showed 10 new amazing features but also said they were working on some top secret things they couldn't show yet as they didn't want to start Windows photo copiers too soon! It was amazing and you can all see it by clicking here and see the WWDC

A short Apple history:

The Macintosh was officially announced on January 22, 1984, with the now-famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott. This commercial showed a woman, played by Anya Major, who defiantly throws a sledgehammer at a Big Brother-like video screen (which represented IBM). This was symbolic of Apple challenging the text-based computers that dominated the market at the time. The Mac itself went on sale for US$2,495 on the same day as the 1984 Super Bowl commercial. It came bundled with two useful programs designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and MacPaint. Although the Mac garnered an immediate, enthusiastic following, it was too radical for some. Because the machine was entirely designed around the GUI, existing text-mode and command-driven programs had to be redesigned and rewritten; this was a challenging undertaking that many software developers shied away from, and resulted in an initial lack of software for the new system. Many users, accustomed to the arcane world of command lines, labeled the Mac a mere “toy”.

Present Day:

Now it's growing and many PC people have trouble with that and start to pick on Apple users. The latest blow to Windows is that the new computers you buy at Apple can also boot with Windows XP and OS X, making the switch easier!

My Day In The City I Grew Up

Friday I went to my parents, it's a two and a half hour journey and as my mom and I wanted to go cloth shopping for skirts she wanted to make me, I had to get up early. I wanted to go at 7 o'clock but because I was awakened by the heavy rain I went an hour earlier. When I finally reached my destination it had become dry again and my mother and I left immediately for the market. I found some pretty cloths and my mom and I decided to go windowshopping. Me and my mom love to do that but as always it didn't stay window shopping! I saw some DVD I wanted for a nice price and I saw some books I wanted (which I didn't get) We also had a nice cup of coffee and hot chocolate and we went to an old friend of mine who owns a dog trimming saloon.

At my friend shop we talked about our lives and we talked about the animals. She had some hoppers that hadn't been picked up and she gave them to me for my spiders but when I got home my man loved the look of them so much that they are now enjoying a nice life in a terrarium! I also met some friends of my mother and then we went home.

We started right away to make the skirts and then needed to start dinner already as I needed to leave earlier than normal. We had Chinese and it was nice to have my mother cook for me again! Of course my train didn't go as it should when I went back and I needed to take another train. The ticket lady send me first to the wrong train but because I am so smart (ahem, ahem) I took another train that I thought was more logic (I am Tuvok's relative!) and it paid in the end! I was only 15 minutes late instead of 45 minutes.