Fractals.

I haven't created any new images for a few weeks, but I thought I'd post some of my better ones here.
I have around 200 more of these sitting around, so if anyone wants to see them feel free to send me an e-mail.
Click on the images to view them in full-size.

The great thing about fractal drawings is that they can be resized to any resolution, so assuming I had a giant plotter of some kind I could turn these into 500m by 500m flags.
You know.
In case anyone ever needs a really huge flag.
It could happen.

Childhood dreams come true: How to cheat at Minesweeper and more.

Microsoft Games.
Everyone has played them at least once, with varying results.
Some claim to be masters of Solitaire, some take great pride in their advanced status on Minesweeper, and some may even venture a boast in regards to their Pinball score. However, there will always be those who are absolutely hopeless.
Maybe it's due to a lack of lateral thinking, luck, or perhaps some of the games don't seem to actually make any sense (I'm looking at you, Freecell).
Regardless, this post is for you.

Let's begin with a childhood favourite: Minesweeper.
It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, or how great you think you are at games: if you have ever played Minesweeper, you have lost at least once.
The deceased smiling face now wears a frown, and you know that you are directly responsible for his brutal demise.

After reading this, there is no need to worry further.
Here's a fool-proof way to keep him smiling/alive:

1) Minimize or close all running applications.
2) Open Minesweeper.
3) Type xyzzy
4) Press Shift.
5) Now when you move your cursor over a square in the game, keep an eye out on the top-left part of your desktop screen. You should see a white pixel.
This white pixel means that a square is safe to click - if the pixel is black, it is a mine.
Congratulations, you'll never lose at Minesweeper again.
You're also a shameless cheater.

Next up is Pinball - A favourite among those looking for flashing lights and sounds.
Whatever your motives for cheating are, the next hint will prove to be very useful if you have an ongoing pinball rivalry with a sibling, friend, or mortal foe.
At the start of your game, type hidden test.
You may not think anything has happened - you're wrong.
Click and hold the left mouse button, dragging the cursor across the pinball screen.
Surely enough, the ball follows your every movement.
While this is exciting at first, you will soon realise that you're cheating at Microsoft Pinball. You have reached a new low.

The final part of this post is devoted to Solitaire.
Perhaps the most well-known of all standard Microsoft Games, Solitaire has managed to take playing card games by yourself to a whole new level.
It's easy to play but involves quite a significant amount of time, making it even more satisfying when you win a game.
The next cheat will remove that genuine sense of achievement, and replace it with an absolutely hollow victory.
Press Alt + Shift + 2 to instantly win.
There. That's it.
Way to go, champ.

Apostrophe Madness '07!

1) Who's the party's candidate for vice president this year?

2) The fox had its right foreleg securely in the trap's jaws.

3) Our neighbours' car is an old Chrysler, and it's just about to fall apart.
(Presuming that we have several neighbours rather than a single individual.)

4) In three weeks' time we'll have to begin school again.

5) Didn't you hear that they're leaving tomorrow?

6) Whenever I think of the stories I read as a child, I remember Cinderella's glass slipper and Snow White's wicked stepmother.

7) We claimed the picnic table was ours, but the Smiths children looked so disappointed that we found another spot.
(Presuming that the family in question is called Smiths.)

8) It's important that the kitten learns to find its way home.

9) She did not hear her children's cries.

10) My address has three sevens, and Tim's phone number has four twos.

11) Didn't he say when he would arrive at Arnie's house?

12) It's such a beautiful day that I've decided to take a sunbath.

13) She said the watch Jack found was hers, but she couldn't identify the manufacturer's name on it.

14) Little girls' clothing is on the first floor, and the mens department is on the second.

15) The dog's bark was far worse than its bite.

16) The moon's rays shone feebly on the path, and I heard the insects' chirpings and whistlings.

17) They're not afraid to go ahead with the plans, though the choice is not theirs.

18) The man whose face was tan said that he had spent his two weeks' vacation in the mountains.

19) I found myself constantly putting two Cs in the word process.

20) John's 69 Ford is his proudest possession.

A New Hope indeed.

It's no secret that Star Wars has shaped the lives of nerds worldwide.
The original Episode Four not only marked a new epoch in the somewhat esoteric culture of geeks; its fanbase also included a surprisingly large amount of "Normal People".
Rest assured that not a single well-adjusted, socially adept person was involved in the making of:

STAR WARS EPISODE FOUR - ASCII VERSION.

In my Operating Systems class, we've recently been looking at command lines.
For any of my classmates currently reading this, here's a chance to put your newly-acquired skills to the test:

1) Open the Run menu. (Access through Start > Run or just press Windows Key + R)
2) Type in "telnet". (No quotation marks)
3) If you did this correctly, you should be faced with something resembling this:

4) Type in "o towel.blinkenlights.nl". (Once again, no quotation marks)
5) Press Enter.
6) Sit back and enjoy.

Outtakes from key scenes:





May the Force be with you.

How small can you feel?

I've been interested in astronomy for a while now, and discoveries like this continue to completely puzzle me.

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A giant hole in the Universe is devoid of galaxies, stars and even lacks dark matter, astronomers said on Thursday.

The team at the University of Minnesota said the void is nearly a billion light-years across and they have no idea why it is there.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick.

Writing in the Astrophysical Journal, Rudnick and colleagues Shea Brown and Liliya Williams said they were examining a cold spot using the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite, and found the giant hole.

"We already knew there was something different about this spot in the sky," Rudnick said. The region stood out as being colder in a survey of the Cosmic Microwave Background -- the faint radio buzz left over from the Big Bang that gave birth to the Universe.

"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the Universe," Williams said in a statement.

The astronomers said the region even appeared to lack dark matter, which cannot be seen directly but is usually detected by measuring gravitational forces.

The void is in a region of sky in the constellation Eridanus, southwest of Orion."

The fact that there is no dark matter in this void is completely mind-boggling.
Dark matter is hypothetical matter of unknown composition that does not emit or reflect enough electromagnetic radiation to be observed directly, but its presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter.
Dark matter accounts for the vast majority of mass in the observable universe.
The lack of dark matter means that there is literally nothing in this area.

To clarify just how big this void is:
A light-year is approximately equal to 9,460,730,472,580.8 km.
It takes one billion light-years to cross the void.
So:

1000,000,000 x ,460,730,472,580.8 = 460730472580800000000

The mean circumference of Earth is 40,041.47 km.
Now imagine 460,730,472,580,800,000,000 km of absolute nothingness.
It's enough to make you feel more than a little uncomfortable.

As someone once said, what we can observe of the Universe is like trying to see an elephant by standing two inches from it with a magnifying glass.
Standing two inches away from this elephant and looking at it through a magnifying glass, we have managed to see an embodiment of pure nonexistence spanning across an area much larger than anything we could possibly experience.
What else is out there?

My favourite piece of software.

While it is not my intention to brag, I have been using software since directly after my birth.
The comfortable woollen or cotton fabrics in which the midwife wrapped me marked my first venture into the magical world of software, as I began weeping with tears of both joy and sheer terror due to the sudden presence of blinding light which penetrated deep into my soul. My fear of light has since vanished, but my software-related adventures continue to this day.

As a primary school student in Enschede I was known for my supreme skills in MS Paint. I could draw various Pokemon, and often exchanged my crude (but strangely transfixing) drawings for items such as primitive pea-shooters, pogs, and the occasional piece of an eraser.
As I approached Year 8 I began using Microsoft Word to write assignments, and never failed to save them on one of my many floppy disks.

I began experimenting in Adobe Photoshop around 5 years ago, in a feeble attempt to superimpose my head on Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. Since then I have grown more adept in this program, and use it whenever I have the opportunity.
In this blog alone you can find two examples of Photoshopped images.

Photoshop is extremely versatile, and can be used for a variety of purposes, including:
1) Making horrifyingly ugly people/buildings/objects appear beautiful.
2) Inserting literally hundreds of different effects to add to an image.
3) Creating animated GIFs.
4) Inserting text.
5) Perfecting, sharpening, and digitally retouching any image, no matter how blurry it is.
6) Combining images, often used in creating multi-layered designs for album covers, magazine covers, and similar media.
7) Doing pretty much anything else imaginable to an image.

Photoshop is my favourite piece of software, because it provides me with a limitless ability to edit any image. It can be used to design banners for websites, manipulate images for added content, or simply as a recreational tool. "The many faces of Mick Murray" to the right of this page [EDIT: Now obsolete - visit http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h103/Wombats_Live_Forever/Layered.gif for reference purposes]were created in Photoshop, and lack any kind of practical use. That's not to say I didn't enjoy making them, and hopefully some of you enjoyed looking at various mutations of yours truly.
Spiderman's wise Uncle Ben once said that "With great power comes great responsibility."
Using Photoshop, one could superimpose my head on Uncle Ben's body.

To finish off this journal entry, I would like to share something very special with you.
When I was still in my Microsoft Paint stage I decided to draw my favourite Dutch football player - Marc Overmars. Hopefully you can gain some inspiration from it.


Image Copyright of Mick Murray, circa 1997.
Any attempt to reproduce this drawing will result in immediate legal action.

Fond Memories.

When I was younger, my family travelled a lot.
In Holland it's considered nothing out of the ordinary to have a holiday somewhere in the Mediterranean area, France, or any other Western European country during the summer vacation. The Dutch culture tends to have a very strong mentality of 'getting away' from the crowded cities, and flocking en masse towards less crowded cities in order to fill them up again. Once a year there would be a mass exodus; an event which I have coined The Dutchaspora.
Think of it as a Diaspora with clogs.

My personal Dutchaspora journeys have taken me to some wonderful places, including Portugal, Germany, France, England, and Scotland, but one country in particular left a very memorable impression on me. Greece.
We stayed on the island of Corfu, in a hotel filled with like-minded tourists. I have never been an extremely social person, but as a young boy I suffered from a crippling disease known in English as shyness. I like to think that changed a little, if only slightly, on that holiday.

This was quite a long time ago, but I still remember a lot of the finer details very well. The beach was great, even though I was apprehensive at first about swimming in the open sea. My mother had a rather unfortunate encounter with something quite similar to this when she waded out into the water.
This, of course, meant that I desperately tried to remain afloat without ever touching the ground when I was out at sea. Throughout my three-week stay, locals reported several sightings of a small mammal-like creature flailing around madly, and shiftily looking down into the clear water in search of predators.
(The worst predator I saw during the course of the holiday was a man with a ponytail who charged me around $20 NZD for a poorly manufactured Inter Milan jersey.)

In the short time that I stayed in Greece, I had made three very good friends.
There was another Dutch family staying in the same hotel as us, who had a son who was a few months older than me. Knowing that I had someone my age to talk to in Dutch was reasurring, especially since we shared one common hobby:
Defending ourselves from flying ants.
While I am not an expert on the finer points of ant life, I do know that in certain species the males grow wings at a certain time of year in order to help fulfill some kind of colony-oriented goal. To two young boys with water pistols, they served only as moving targets. We had the time of our lives, triumphantly declaring victory every time we incapacitated an ant (who was always either an alien invader or a Nazi Messerschmidt aircraft) for a period greater than two seconds.
We never spoke again.

The second friend I made was Vasili, a Greek man who owned a taverna on the beach.
He was extremely interested in Native American culture, and wore a necklace which depicted an Indian Chief. He reminded me a lot of a character in an unwritten book, and was one of the kindest people I can remember meeting.
One thing that my father said later still stays with me:
He was a great human being, but not a businessman.
Vasili would give guests free food, drinks, and he spent more money on keeping his tavern than he earned. I didn't speak a lot of English, and I'm unsure of how much he spoke, but on my last day in Greece I gave him a Lego figure of an indian chief.
He gave me his necklace.

On that same day, I woke up early to spend my last Greek coins. My parents were still asleep, so I walked down the road towards the local shop.
I wanted to buy them something nice, and decided to buy two bottles shaped like a cannon and a female Greek wearing traditional garments.
I also bought a loaf of bread.
The shopkeeper stared at me when I proudly put these items on the counter, and I thought I must have looked at him in some strange way, because he appeared to be on the verge of laughter. I was not sure whether I should have felt proud or embarrassed. Now I realise why he had looked at me the way he did - the two bottles contained extremely strong alcohol known as Ouzo. I had bought enough booze to kill a small elephant.

One thing I have learned from my time in Greece is that memories are some of the most amazing things that us humans are capable of having. Oscar Wilde once despondently referred to his experiences as 'no more than a memory', but I ask: what do we ultimately have, besides memories?
I've lost Vasili's necklace, and I've long forgotten the name of my brother-in-arms, but years after all of this happened I am still moved by all of these encounters.
Sometimes a small memory can be as effective as a lifetime in bringing back feelings, and I consider myself very lucky to have so many of them.
I would go back to Corfu if I had the opportunity to do so, but I am not sure if I ever will.

Dunedin: Dunedain without the 'a'.

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island, which isn't saying that much really - with around 120,000 inhabitants, our population is less than that of Fusagasugá, Colombia. However, Dunedin has repeatedly proven itself to be a subject of both national significance and international interest. So what is it that makes Dunedin so special? The city boasts several important landmarks, including a beautiful railway station, and it was once the capital city of New Zealand because of its thriving economy. However, I believe that the true tourist attraction is the natural area of Dunedin itself.

Dunedin lies on the Otago Peninsula, a volcanic remnant which plays host to various rare species of wildlife. There have been dolphin sightings, seals, penguins, various rare birds, and there's even an albatross colony! I'm originally from Holland, where the most exotic animal you could find was an extremely large cow, so this was the equivalent of stumbling into the Garden of Eden for me.
Surrounded by thick forests and dozens of walking tracks wherever you turn, any real eco-tourist wouldn't think twice about staying here. For anyone wanting to enjoy unmatched scenery, Dunedin can provide a truly extraordinary experience.

Less discerning holiday-makers, perhaps those with families in tow, will be looking for a more relaxed time.
Parents who are sick of hearing "Are we there yet?" on the way to the beach will breathe a sigh of relief when they realise that wherever they are in Dunedin, it will never take more than 15 minutes to be 'there'.
The beaches surrounding the Dunedin area are so vast and numerous that even in the middle of Summer, you could find your very own spot in the sand.

The first time I went to St. Clair beach in Dunedin, I felt like I was trapped in one of the more bizarre Twilight Zone episodes. The weather was nice, the beach was perfect, and there was a slight breeze which dispelled the heat.
There were three other people on the beach.
I was convinced that there must have been some kind of nuclear holocaust. Maybe the water was rife with swimming bears, and everyone had fled in terror. Maybe, just maybe, my many attempts to enter The Matrix had finally paid off? Like the majority of visitors to Dunedin (and perhaps New Zealand as a whole), I was shocked. Pleasantly shocked.

In summer, Dunedin's climate can be close to perfect.
Usually we can expect long hours of sun, with temperatures rarely reaching uncomfortable proportions. The Winter, however, often makes up for this.
Dunedin freezes. A lot. It's not the good kind of freezing either; the kind that makes you curl up next to a fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate in your hand.
This is the kind of freezing that solidifies the hot chocolate, and renders you largely immobile for at least two months. Self-diagnosed frostbite is extremely prominent among local hypochondriacs, and throughout our long winter nights the sound of weeping children can be easily identified. This makes mid-winter Dunedin a prime holiday destination for both masochists and snow enthusiasts. Incredible landscapes are often added to with a touch of snow, enabling you to take a panorama photo, send it back to your relatives overseas, and pretend you're in Scandinavia.

On the whole, Dunedin is an unmissable place to visit. It's one of very few holiday destinations that can provide you with Mediterranean beaches in summer, ski-slopes in winter, and exclusive flora and fauna every single day of the year.
Whatever you're looking for in your New Zealand experience, there is a good chance that Dunedin will offer it to you.

P.S.: We also have a brewery.