Thomas De Maesschalck’s blog

Wonder why the value of the US dollar is going down? The St. Louis Fed has one of the answers:

Prosper De Backer (11 mei 1933 – 2 september 2009)

Liefste pit,

Voor ons heb je altijd heel goed zorg gedragen,
Van in de kinderwagen tot na onze tienerjaren,
Als er iets was konden we altijd bij je terecht,
We zagen je heel graag en dat menen we oprecht.

Veel fijne herinneringen verzachten nu onze smart,
Voorgoed uit ons midden maar voor altijd in ons hart.

Je kleinkinderen,
Claudia en Thomas

I went to Cologne, Germany for a couple of days this week to visit Gamescom. This new trade show is the replacement for the Games Convention in Leipzig and it was immediately a big hit, Koelmesse announced today that the first edition of the five-days long fair received a total of 245,000 visitors, making it the biggest video game expo in the world.

Here’s some coverage of Gamescom I posted this weekend:

Gamescom boothbabes

DCMM 2009 casemods at Gamescom

A closeup of the 1099EUR ASUS MARS graphics card

And some hands-on photos of the Razer Naga

A full Gamescom report and a blog post about my trip will follow later this week.

Wednesday morning I’m heading to Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. This event is the (unofficial) successor of the Games Convention in Leipzig and will be one of the largest gaming expos in Europe. There will be four entertainment halls with nearly 400 exhibitors from all over the world, all major game publishers will be there and gamers will get the opportunity to test lots of upcoming games, including the highly anticipated Diablo III (as well as StarCraft II)!

Coverage of Gamescom will be posted on DV Hardware once I’m back home.

Today I came across an interesting video created by Chris Martenson, it deals with how accurate economic data really is. Martenson gives examples on how governments spin economic data such as inflation figures, unemployment, and GDP to make them look rosier than they really are. It’s just under 16 minutes long and definitely worth a watch.