They say a picture is worth a thousand words but these pictures are worth 1693 words each. After writing 5079 words for my essay on “The Perceived Freshness Fetish” it was time for a little break. I walked through the park and found the most beautiful spot ever inside a huge pond overlooking the Gashouder. They were working inside the Gashouder which allowed me to sneak inside and take some pictures.

Inside the Gashouder

Inside the pond, a well kept secret in Amsterdam *shhtttt*

Inside the Gashouder

I made a lot of pictures inside the pond which I am planning on stitching together to create a panorama. This might take a while since I have to finish my essay first and then master the GIMP. I recently switched to the GIMP photo editing software but I am still struggling with the interface. Switching from Photoshop to the GIMP is hard, to put it mildly. I strongly dislike the interface and all the separate windows. Actually I hate it but I am going to give it a try. Why does open source software equal user unfriendly interfaces 99% of the time?

Google is still maintaining it’s strong number one position in the search engine landscape. Microsoft is trying to get back by launching it’s new Live Search service, but are they strong enough to overthrow the almighty Google? This is one of the questions I asked myself for my BA thesis. And of course there are still Ask.com and Yahoo! (which is focusing more on social search).

These big media conglomerates are dominating the search engine landscape and there seems to be an endless media concentration going on. What is the impact on the access to information when only a few players dominate the market?

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