Ik geef training in frontend tools en stacks als HTML, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Angular en Vue. Ik schrijf boeken en artikelen over tal van (ICT-) onderwerpen. Ik was lead developer en directeur bij Yindo - Jouw digitale bibliotheek. Je kunt mij volgen op Twitter(@PeterKassenaar).

In dit blog vind je persoonlijke artikelen, die niet noodzakelijk tech-gerelateerd zijn.

Views and expressions are my own.

11januari

Brainstorming - letting thoughts flow freely

What we do

In the world of Team IT at ProductIP in Ede, the Netherlands, our core task is clear: we develop applications for a Label Manager application and our core SaaS Platform, aligning with legislation and stakeholder requirements. We then modify the code based on wishes, new laws, reported bugs and more.

However, there are moments when no specific regulations exist yet! This is for example seen with upcoming ESG guidelines. While we anticipate future rules, their exact nature and interpretation remain uncertain. Yet, we must deliver software promptly.

How a brainstorm session helps us

To tackle such challenges, our IT team convenes every Tuesday at ProductIP Headquarters in Ede, NL. These brainstorming sessions are crucial. They allow us to tap into our collective creativity and imagination. We explore diverse questions, from simple ones like recording water usage in product manufacturing to complex challenges like streamlining the entire product supply chain.

During these sessions, everyone contributes insights, ideas, and even prototypes. While it may seem that no concrete code or immediate improvements emerge, the value lies in our collective creative power. We often unearth innovative solutions that wouldn't have surfaced individually.

Hence, brainstorming sessions serve as a vital tool in our IT process. They help us thrive when facing ambiguous or uncharted territories, like the evolving landscape of ESG regulations. These sessions ensure that we're prepared to deliver efficient and compliant software solutions, even in the absence of clear directives.

Peter Kassenaar
-- 11 January 2024

29december

Dashboards: more than meets the eye

One of the things we are doing in my company is creating a new Dashboard for the SaaS-platform we are offering to our customers. This way, customer data can be made more visually insightful.

Color blindness

In the discussions we had about the Dashboard, it was brought to our attention that one of our colleagues is color blind. For him, for example, it is difficult to distinguish whether a pie slice of a graph is red or green, and where the separation between the values lies.
It turns out that worldwide about 8% of men experience some form of color blindness and 0.5% of women. These do not seem like large percentages, but still means that almost 1 in 10 users (including our customers!) is color blind. So, we must take this into account in the final design. There should be some kind of switch that allows the visitor to switch between a standard color palette or a palette optimized for the most common forms of color blindness. This way everyone will benefit, and we will provide better value for our customers.

User Experience

This once again shows that a seemingly simple question ("Can you create a dashboard?") can be more complex than you think at first glance. As one of my previous students (now a specialist on User Experience, UX, Michael Ramlal), put it: “Simplifying complex data visualization is easier said than done, especially if you aim for inclusivity. I'm a big fan of Edward Tufte, who, with his minimalist approach, managed to convey the right message visually.”

-- Peter Kassenaar

29 december 2023

17december

Communication is key

This week the ProductIP IT team (where I work) had a very interesting meeting with the Regulatory Team. They trained us on the upcoming ESG regulations and the – already available, but apparently not widely known – Sustainable Development Goals, SDG.

Supply chain

We learned about the complete supply chain. From resource managers to designers of the product, to packaging and shipping partners. We played a role game in which each of us was assigned one role and had to fill in the Actions, Consequences and Datapoints for their part of the manufacturing process. It dawned on us that we, as programmers, had no idea the production chain was that large!

Speaking the same language

From a broader perspective, it also became clear that the two teams (Regulatory and IT), although being part of the same company, basically spoke two very different languages. The IT team wanted “hard” qualifications and data points to put into their database and code. While the Regulatory Team was much more involved with the subtleties of the various laws and regulations, which were a result of months of discussions and negotiations with all kinds of stakeholders.

Actually, we discovered that the discussion following the training was more about understanding each other and building bridges between our respective worlds than coming up with concrete solutions for buttons, windows and questionnaires for the ProductIP Platform.

Once again, communication is key! No matter how much you think “well, we work for the same company, surely we understand what colleagues are talking about, right?” Clearly, it’s not that simple.

Lessons learned

A big takeaway lesson was that teams need to keep talking to each other. And not be afraid to ask questions. Even within the same company.

05april

Top-3 YouTube Chess Channels

After a hiatus of around 25 years I recently picked up the habit of playing chess again. Much has changed!

The last time I played, you exchanged email addresses with fellow chess playing fanatics and send each other daily mails containing the moves you wanted to make in plain text format. You had to load that text into a chess program you picked up somewhere from a BBS (Bulletin Board System, remember those?) and analyzed the move. Then you made your move, exported the newly created file to your mailing program and emailed it back. However, back then we considered it blazingly fast, because the alternative was writing your move by hand on a postcard, post it somewhere in a mailbox to have it send to your opponent. When lucky, an exchange of one (1) move for black and white only took two or three days.

Anyway. Excuses me for telling tales from my rocking chair on the porch. Nowadays we have a plethora of online chess platforms. Recently I signed up for an account at chess.com. It is one of the biggest platforms and this article helped me decide which one to choose.

I enjoy playing people from all over the world (real time! My head sometimes still explodes when thinking about that), solve puzzles, and learn a thing or two from its extensive database with videos, articles and more.

However, when I’m not at the board I also enjoy watching YouTube videos. I’m always eager to learn more, or use the gazillion chess videos just for entertainment. Among the countless chess channels out there, I found these three most entertaining and valuable.

They are in no particular order. Sometimes I like to learn new things, and watch opening theories from Gotham Chess. Other times I watch historic games and have them explained by Agadmator. And sometimes I just want to listen to Eric Rosen. So I ordered my three favorite channels by the number of YouTube subscribers.

1. Agadmator – 1.08M Subscribers

“HELLO EVERYONE!” If you have ever only watched one chess video, chances are it was from Agadmator. It is the most popular chess channel on YouTube, serving over one million subscribers. It’s hosted by Antonio Radić from Croatia.

Agadmator is known for his frantic uploading schedule and his explanation of popular [historic] matches. He always discusses a match in great detail, explaining the thoughts of the players and alternative lines that could be played (but were not). When a critical or deciding move is made, he goes like “I now give you a couple of seconds to pause the video and try to find what XXX did here”. And after some seconds of awkwardly looking away from the camera he goes like “well, to those of you who found move YYY, congratulations!” and continues the game unfazed.

You can definitely learn a lot from the explanations. The matches and comments are most entertaining.

2. Gotham chess – 823K Subscribers

If you’re into some chess lessons, alternative opening theories or endgame tactics, look no further than Levy Rozman’s channel Gotham Chess. Rozman, an International Master himself with an ELO rating in the 2300-2400 range, tells you all about it in easy to digest 10-minute videos.

Well, the clips themselves are ten minutes long, but he fires the words and moves to you at such a rapid pace that it easily takes an hour or more to see for yourself what he actually did and how it can be of any benefit to your own games. You can buy more information via his chess lessons online, but he gives away an unprecedented amount of information for free. Go check this channel out if you want to improve your game.

3. Eric Rosen – 401K Subscribers

Almost the opposite of the frantic speed that Levy Rozman spews his words at you, is the channel of Eric Rosen, also an International Master. In a calm and soothing voice, he live plays dozens of random people/subscribers/bots/masters during his Twitch streaming sessions that he posts to YouTube afterwards.

Needless to say that he wins most of them, but always in a polite and respectful manner. Sometimes even blindfolded. Eric Rosen stunned my by playing 3 minute bullet games, meanwhile being able to explain all of his moves and possible alternatives. All this when still being comfortable on time while at the same time his opponents struggle with only a few seconds on the clock.

BTW, if you ever have the chance to play Rosen and he goes like “Oh no, my Queen!” (or: Rook, Knight, Bishop), accompanied by a vileine smile, most likely he set up a trap for you so you’re confronted with checkmate in one of the next few moves.

Summary

Of course there are many, many more, but these are my favorite ones. Can you recommend a particular chess channel? Let me know in the comments below!

BTW – if you want to play a game of chess, hit me up on chess.com! My username is pkas06.

-- Peter Kassenaar
5 April 2021

29maart

My comments on “Top 50 metal bands of all time”

https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-50-best-metal-bands-of-all-time

No technical stuff here, just a bit of fun.

I Stumbled upon this blogpost, it appeared in my Google Discovery feed I believe. Being a metalhead kid from the 1980’s, I was curious what a 2020 list would look like. I haven’t followed metal closely from – let’s say – 1991, when Kurt Kobain single handedly killed metal with his Nevermind album and the invention of Grunge music, until about 2010.

In the meantime, I listened to a lot of music to broaden my horizons. From Alison Krauss to J.S. Bach and from David Bowie to Madness. But I find myself coming back to metal nowadays and I’m excited by the new subgenres that have come across and all the new bands that arrived.

I feel, with 35+ years of experience under my belt that I am actually entitled to say something about the metal subculture and lists like this.

I did not read the list in advance to see who holds the top spot. I just started with number #50, Killswitch Engage and went on. Page by page, video by video. I noted my remarks as I went along. Again, I swear I didn’t scroll to see the top-10 before I got there :-).

I decided to watch the proposed video clip of every band in this list that I actually knew (whether I knew the song in the video or not). This is the list that I had to watch:

No.	Band, song	Song	Remarks
50	Killswitch Engage	My curse	Saw them as a support act for – I think – Metallica in Gelredome, Arnhem in 2004 or 2006. I can only remember the double drum riser. Was quite underwhelmed at the time. In the end this song, My curse, is not a bad song at all, but it won’t end up in my playlist.
49	Helloween	I want out	Expected this band to be higher in the list, but that could be due to the fact that it’s a personal favorite of mine. Never saw the original video of this song (from 1988), only live performances. Very, very nice song. One of the first speed/powermetal bands.
48	Nine Inch Nails		Know the name but can’t remember that I ever listened to a single song of them. So not watching the video.
47	Trivium		Never heard of them.
46	Faith no more		See #48
45	In Flames		See #47
44	Five Finger Death Punch		See #47
43	Sepultura	Roots bloody Roots	Can’t say that I know a lot of them, but I have definitely listened to them back in the eighties. So I had to watch this video. Not bad at all, though it won’t end up on my record player.
42	Anthrax	It’s a mad house	Saw them as support act for – I think – Iron Maiden, back somewhere in the eighties. The song title and video didn’t ring a bell at first sight, but I remembered the madhouse setting once I saw it. Watched it on headbangers ball on MTV, back in the day. I could even sing along after a chorus or two. Absolutely not as extreme as I remembered Anthrax. Nice and catchy song.
41	Within Temptation	What about us	Good song, already some 6 years old now. It’s from WT a bit later in their career. Not as bombastic and symphonic as their earlier work, but more the pure metal sound. They should have put in a song/video without Tarja, however. What about us is not representative for their catalog, I believe.
40	Motley Crue	Kickstart my heart	One of their defining songs. I own a record or two from the Crue, including the 1989 Dr. Feelgood, which sports this song. Nice one. When you are picked up for dead (literally) from the streets after OD’ing, being brought back to life with some shots of adrenalin by a medical nurse who happened to be a fan, and later on write a song about it. So, so Crue.
39	Marilyn Manson		See #48
38	Deftones		See #47
37	Disturbed		See #47
36	Amon Amarth	The way of Vikings	Well, I know them, so I had to watch the video, as defined in the rules of this quest. I like the instrumentation, the melodics and the rhythms by this band. But as soon as the singer opens his mouth, I leave. Simply terrible. Don’t like it. No, let me rephrase that. I hate it. The overkill of violence in the clip doesn’t help. But I watched the complete video. Goddammit, it lasted forever. Send me kudos.
35	Paradise Lost		See #47
34	Sabaton	Bismarck	At #34. ONLY at #34? My goodness, what follows in the rest of the list? Bismarck, a 2019 song but already a classic in my opinion. Such a strong song from one of the most influential and important bands in the metal scene at this moment. At #34. Sigh.
33	Ghost		See #47
32	Type O Negative		See #47
31	King Diamond		See #48
30	Rage against the Machine		See #48
29	Linkin Park		See also #48. Really can’t remember to have heard a song from them.
28	Nightwish	Elan	Really? #28? Twenty-fucking-eight? See Sabaton. This list is becoming a joke, more or less. Nightwish is around for over two decades (!) now, it is so influential and important that it should have been in the top-15 at a minimum. Is this for real? It is more and more looking like an American List to me. Definitely not European. Anyway, Elan. Beautiful song from one of their best albums, with Floor Janssen, one of the best singers in metal history.
27	Meshuggah		Well, after Nightwish I expected to know about every band in the rest of the list, but really haven’t heard of this group. So, see #47.
26	Alice in Chains		See #48. I know the name, but not one single song. Sorry.
25	Mastodon		Also, #48. Death or trash metal, right? Not my cup of tea, though I can appreciate a good melody and interesting chord progression in a song. But I really haven’t heard a single song of Mastodon.
24	Avenged Sevenfold		See #47. Who are they? Why are they higher in the list than Nightwish?
23	Korn		See #48.
22	Guns ‘n Roses	Sweet Child o’ mine	Exciting at the time, a bit of a tragical band right now after the reunion. With Axl Rose keeping up appearances and Slash being a caricature of himself with his top hat and bottle of Jack Daniels. This is a relevant song, though. Never saw them live.
21	Dio	Holy Diver	Of course. One of the best, if not the best metal singers of all time, out of the top-20. Ronnie Dio could have been the father of all the bands in this list that I don’t know. This list is composed by idiots, or people who are too young to know on which shoulder of giants the current bands stand. Listen to the intensity of Holy Diver. Not the fastest, not the heaviest sound, but my god, what vocals. Joakim of Sabaton played a bit of Holy Diver on his keyboard at concerts, during their last tour. As a homage, I assume.
20	Lamb of God		See #47. Who the fuck is Lamb of God? Have I missed that much during my absence?
19	Dream Theater	Another Day	Well, this is actually where I would expect a band like Dream Theater. Very influential, quite important on their own. I didn’t know the song Another Day, don’t especially like the saxophone in it. It just doesn’t fit, even in a ballad. I understand the song is about cancer. Very sad, but that doesn’t make this song any better. Not bad, but definitely not their best, I think.
18	System of a Down		See #48. Have heard of them, but never heard them.
17	Death		Sorry. See #47. Never heard of them.
16	Motorhead	Ace of Spades	What can you say. If you haven’t heard of Motorhead, you’ve been living under a rock. Good song, decent position in my opinion. Lemmy is the only bass player I know who doesn’t care for playing it as a bass guitar. He plays it just like a guitar, with chords and solos and all. Love the classic line-up with Eddy Clark and Philthy Taylor.
15	Rammstein	Du Hast	I don’t particularly like Rammstein, I don’t particularly hate them. They just passed me by, somehow. It’s OK. I like it when a band sings German though. It’s a good language for metal.
14	Burgerkill		Burgerkill. Who? Burgergkill? at #14? See #47.
13	Megadeth	Holy wars…the punishment due	Classic story of Dave Mustaine, being kicked out of Metallica and forming his own band as a revenge. And what a band. You may not like Megadeth much (personally I don’t own a single record or cd from them), but you can’t deny their importance.
12	Opeth	Sorceress	I know Opeth but am not really into their style. I can appreciate their music though. But…higher on the list, much higer than Dio? Come on!
11	Tool	Fear Inoculum	I have to admit I only know Tool from the Guitar Hero franchise. I have the critically acclaimed 2019 album Fear Inoculum in my Spotify playlist, but rarely listen to it.
10	Babymetal	Gimme Chocolate	Oh pease, gimme a break. This can’t be serious right? Babymetal is admittedly entertaining, but most important metal bands of all time? People who voted for this Japanese formula franchise have clearly lost their minds. However, I know them, so I had to watch the Gimme Chocolate video. The whole 4:03 minutes.
9	Judas Priest	Painkiller	Well, at least the Priest is in the top-10 and they are higher than Babymetal. I expect all the bands in the top-10 to be equally important (with the exception of #10) and it is hard to order them. I ranked Priest a bit higher though, than at #9. They are arguably the most metal of all metal bands. I consider Judas Priest the best band that I never saw live. Yeah, shame on me. Painkiller is a good and heavy song. Not as good as the ones from the British Steel – Defenders of the faith – Screaming for Vengeance era, but not as bad as the Jugulator ones. Rob Halfords vocals are breathtaking here. Together with Dio he is in the top 5 of metal vocalists of all time. Classical double guitar Priest solos. “Breaking the what? Breaking the what?”
8	Gojira		Fucking WHAT? See #47. Am I that dumb? Have I missed so much? Literally never ever even heard the name of this band.
7	Slayer	Raining Blood	Ah, good old Slayer. Not my alltime favorite, but at least I don’t feel completely stupid now that I discover them on #7. A position where they belong, in my opinion. Of course in the lineup with the late guitarist Jeff Hanneman
6	Pantera	Walk	I didn’t know this song, but I of course knew Pantera, with the regretted Dimebag Darrel, who was shot on stage by a ‘fan’. Quite influential, though not exceptional, IMO. Just not great songwriting, no surprising chord progressions, not very original, not the best singer. Pantera is well… OK, I guess. Would rank them outside the top-10.
5	Slipknot	Duality	I know the band is quite popular and has a huge, huge amount of fans. I just didn’t listen to it much. What is that gimmick with the masks? Again, I think this one went popular when I wasn’t into metal that much. Hmmm, can’t say that I missed much. Should not rank this band on #5, though. Then again, I’m an old fart.
4	AC/DC	Thunderstruck	Well, as much as I love AC/DC, I thought this was a metal list. And AC/DC is a lot. Like important, one of the biggest live bands on earth, one of the longest lasting bands, and what not. I own their complete catalogue on LP and cd. But it’s not metal I should say. It’s just kick-ass bluesy rock ‘n roll, notched a few bars up. Then again, Motorhead is also on this list. So yeah. AC/DC should be here also. A position of #4 does them justice. I don’t rank Thunderstruck one of their best songs, but it has definitely become a signature song of the Australian behemoth.
3	Black Sabbath	Paranoid	Yeah, well. Again, maybe not really metal, but at least metal before it even existed. This band of course defined metal. Especially with the classic Ozzy-lineup. The #3 spot makes up for the absence of Ozzy as a standalone artist in this list. What other song than Paranoid could be picked from Sabbath? Quick reminder: it is from 1970, so it is a mind blowing 50 years old this year. Half a century!
2	Iron Maiden	The Wicker Man	Completely agree here. Maiden is one of the bands I saw live the most I think. For the last time in the summer of 2018, with their Legacy of the Beast tour. Inexhaustible they tour the world. For a staggering 40 years now. Saw them for the first time on the legendary Live after Death tour in 1984. Iron Maiden is definitely one of the most influential bands around. What can I say. Well, allright. The Wicker Man might not be their most defining song, but admittedly it’s a good one. Brilliant bass play by Steve Harris. I think it’s from the Brave new World era, when Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith returned, only to rise to new heights. So, so good.
1	Metallica	Nothing else matters	The moment I saw this list pop up, I thought “well, I’ll eat my boots if Metallica isn’t in the #1 spot.” And rightfully they are. I was literally blown away when I first heard the Kill em All album, at the age of 14, in the room of a friend of mine. The black, red and white album cover more or less defined my life at that point. A few years later, in middle school we formed a band and won a playback contest at the school dance, doing Whiplash. I was James Hetfield. I was actually the singer in a metal band at that time, though I faked the guitar parts – couldn’t play a note in real life, haha. I’m not that much into trash or death metal as you may have guessed by now, but Metallica is a part of my life. Saw them live a lot of times. Metallica is the biggest metal band of all time. Period.

Having read the whole list now and watched all the videos of the bands I knew (even if I didn’t know the song), I went back to the first page of the original blog. It states “Here's, officially, the 50 best metal bands in the world. As voted by you.” But I think the “you” here is very, very American. I feel the visitors of this website, and hence the voters are mostly coming from the North American continent and therefore it is a very American List.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-50-best-metal-bands-of-all-time

Missing bands

Composed by American voters. Otherwise I can’t explain the inclusion of bands like Killswitch Engage, Korn, System of a Down and, god forgive, Babymetal. At the same time, I can’t explain the absence of bands like Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions (selling 110 million records worldwide! More than Iron Maiden, just a couple of millions less than Metallica), Def Leppard, Michael Schenker, Accept and more European bands that definitely shaped and defined metal.

Sure, the list also doesn’t include Kiss, Whitesnake, WASP, and Van Halen (which are also American bands) but maybe the voters are to young to know them. Although they do vote for Paranoid, strangely.

Conclusion

Remember, metal didn’t arrive in the US untill the birth of Metallica – a band that is formed mainly by James Hetfield and Lars Ullrich, a Dane, for Christ sake. Thus, even the roots of Metallica are 50% European! Sure, it took of then, but not to the extent that this list pretends, I feel.

Also, a lot more – regarding to metal – is happening in Europe right now than in the US. And I feel the ‘modern’ European [powermetal] bands aren’t given enough credits in this list. Think Sabaton, Beast in Black, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Amaranthe, Stratovarius, Hammerfall, Dragonforce, Powerwolf, to name just a few.

Anyhoo…

I will now continue to watch and listen to the bands that I didn’t know. But a report on that will be for another time…

Peter Kassenaar – 29 March 2020

12juli

New online course: Productive Coding with WebStorm

I’m happy to announce that as of today, my new course “Productive Coding with WebStorm” is available on the online training platform Udemy.

Order now with a 30% discount!

JetBrains WebStorm is the perfect editor for web developers. It is a full featured IDE that provides all the tools and features for developers in JavaScript, Typescript, NodeJS and of course HTML and CSS.

This brief training will show you how to best use WebStorm to be as productive as possible. You will learn many useful tricks to work faster. You'll see all the possibilities to customize the user interface, using keyboard shortcuts and write your code superfast by creating and using Live Templates. Also you'll learn how WebStorm supports your workflow and lets you use tools like Gulp, NPM or Github, all without leaving your editor!

The course is specifically intended for WebStorm, but is also extremely valuable for users of other JetBrains editors like IntelliJ, PHPStorm, PyCharm and others.

This course covers the following topics:

Welcome and introduction
Downloading and installing WebStorm
Touring the IDE and setting up your working environment
Adapting the UI to meet your personal needs
Coding faster in JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML and CSS
Using build- and workflow tools right from the IDE
Git- and Github integration
Testing your RESTful Services with the REST Client
Adding and deleting plugins
Other tips and tricks

If you have any questions on this course, feel free to contact me.

Order now with a 30% discount!

Peter Kassenaar
-- 12 July 2016

03juni

Tomb Raider Wallpapers

OK, so this is one of the (I hope rare) fanboy-ish blogposts I do. You see, I’ve been a long time Lara Croft/Tomb Raider fan. This February my wife gave me a (home made) Tomb Raider-coupon for my birthday, enabling me to buy or pre-order the new game the day it comes available.

Well, we’re not there yet, but at least now we’ve got a trailer. And it is a stunning one!

Yes, I know it is a GC-generated trailer (aren’t they all?), but if the quality of the final game is only half as great as it is in this trailer, it will still be fine with me. I played the trailer from YouTube on 1080p HD-quality and made some screenshots that I’ve turned into wallpapers. I thought I’d share them with you (is that OK, @CrystalDKarl?)

At the moment they’re only 1920x1200 (a bit distorted from the original video dimensions, therefore), but you can cut, crop and resize them yourself to suit your monitor size. Below is a link to the original trailer on YouTube.

The only letdown is now that the game is only scheduled for a fall 2012 release. Still more than a year in the waiting… <sigh>.

TombRaider_01.png

TombRaider_02.png

TombRaider_03.png

TombRaider_04.png

Trailer on YouTube

Tomb Raider "Turning Point" Debut Trailer [US Version] in HD quality

Enjoy!

Peter Kassenaar
--03 juni 2011

03april

Midnight Club: Los Angeles - True Dedication

Midnight Club: Los Angeles Logo screen

I recently got into gaming on an Xbox 360. Maybe you have read my newbie blog post on the racing game Midnight Club: Los Angeles. Compared to that post, I can tell you that I've just reached 100% career progression on the game. It took me an insane amount of time (70+ hrs. of gameplay), but this of course was due to the lack of racing skills on my side :-).

So basically, this is 'game over' for me. Sure, you can race for fun, or just do the missions again that you've already completed, but without the pressure of real game progression, this is far less fun.

Achievements

But wait - I don't have all the Xbox Live achievements yet! I was on 790/1000 points when I decided to go for one of the hardest achievements in the game, the True Dedication achievement, worth 100 points.

In short: you have to complete different kind of goals for every race in the game (currently 100) and do so in a single race. This means you have to do every race in the game, win it, finish the race with less than 25% damage on your vehicle and beat a given time for that race.

Yes, this is a hard achievement!

True Dedication Progression Application

Within the game there is little indication of how far you've progressed when going for this achievement. So I decided to write my own progression tracking application. I put in a small registration/login system, so it's a multi user application.

The application enables you to show all MCLA-races completed by course, by time, by area, etc. Also the app will let the user filter or sort the complete Goal Attack list by area, by race type etc.

If you are after the True Dedication achievement yourself, give it a look. You're welcome to register.

Check it out at http://www.kassenaar.com/td/.

Best of all (if I may say so myself :-), you can leave your comments on a race by race base. This might be very helpful to others when they are trying to achieve the goals for the same race you have already completed.

Let me know what you think by leaving a message below, or drop me a note at info@kassenaar.com.

Thanks for reading,
-- Peter Kassenaar, 3 april 2009.