Peaceful use of a “military” tank

Tanks always will make a big first impression. Not only they are very big when your standing next to them, but also the aggressive view and, when the engine is running, the loud noise that’s produced will make your eyes blink. It maybe has also something to do, with the association we have with tanks, because they are made to go to war. But not the tank in this video. It’s designed to fight fire!

Last year the Dutch army decided to stop using tanks. They considered selling them to Indonesia, but the Dutch parlement thought that wasn’t a very good idea, because they were afraid the tanks might be use against the population. Using redundant tanks to fight fire seems a great new life for this fighting machines to me.

As far is I can see it’s a German machine, but the voice-over is in English. Sit back and enjoy.

Talking to your smartphone and translate it in to typed text

“This is the first post ever I write not using a keyboard but just talking that’s because I have a new app is called I can use this app just talking to my iPhone and it will be automatically translated to text I will leave all the mistakes that it makes in it so you can see what does”

Sorry for the text above. It was dictated in the App “Dragon Dictation”. I must say it works quit well. As you can see all the text is written down without any punctuation. Also the time you can speak is a little short.

You can download this App for free in de store.

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Eurovision Song Contest sticks to SMS

Of course there has to be a Eurovision Song Contest App. This traditional contest couldn’t stay behind in a world were for everything is a App available. Because I always need some inspiration for the apps-training I give, I downloaded this App.
But to my surprise you couldn’t give your vote… The only thing it delivers is a list of numbers you can use to send a payed text message.

This is really a strange thing, you can only find in traditional or old fasion organizations. They will keep up with new technology, but are afraid to loose the money of old tech. The only hope you can have is that new, more new-thinkers, will enter the boardrooms of Eurovision. Otherwise these institutional television programs will disappear for ever.

John Lennon’s Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 for sale

As a 24-year old and already famous Beatle, John Lennon dissidet to buy a brand new Ferrari 330 GT 2+2. A beautiful blue car, with a powerful V12 engine containing 330 cc per cylinder, what was the basic for the cars name. That was a lot more then my first car; a Volvo 360 (only 2000 cc for the complete engine).

If you think 260,000 Euro is a fair price for this classic car, you can go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, were auctioneer Bonhams hopes to hit the hammer, around this price. You can find the complete press release here.

I found on YouTube this short video, with pictures of the car:

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My pictures: operation panel of old locomotive

Operation panel of old locomotive

This picture I took years ago. I thought it fits good with the post before, about missing wagons.
The instructions you see on the panel are written in German.

I love this simple operation panels. Most modern Switchers just have a remote control unit, so the driver can stand and walk next to the loc or even sit on the other site of the train. A nice demo you can see in this (undefined language voice-over) video:

Yes! The new Wolfenstein is announced

From the first version on, I’m addicted to the mother of all first-person shooters; Wolfenstein!

This new release won’t be playing in the Second World-war, but in fantasized time, were the German have founded an new world order (The New Order is the title). The only negative thing; we have to wait till the end of this year…

You can read more about this game here.

I won’t let my kid print a gun

Today the first 3D printed gun was fired. Although I think from a technology point of view this is a great breakthrough, it don’t see yet how it would make the world any saver.

Defense Distributed is a group of men that says that owning a gun yes or no, shouldn’t be a decision a government has to make for you. That’s why they will also publish the files, that can help you to make your own gun.

This is one of the first real controversial problems about 3D printing. And I think many will follow. What if we can produce anything we like? I’m sure there will be of lot of posts about this topic to come…

This video tells about Defence Distributed:

You can also watch this video from the BBC about the first shot.