Tired of Christmas Songs?

A gem I came across when digging for AC/DC songs on youtube. Angus with short hair sure was just as much a spurprise as Steven joining the party was.

Jarrod Spillers is a Coward

Or has a mental disorder. Or had a really bad day. Or all of it. Anyways, I read his so-so blog post about git merge vs. rebase where a person called Björn makes two good points about the blog post that help not to get confused by what Jarrod didn't get quite right. Instead of saying “thanks, dude”, Jarrod totally dissed him for the “insanely idiotic things” he writes. Yep, I am citing. Couldn't resist to post a comment myself, which elicited yet another comment by a guy called Sitaram, suggesting that Björn is not exactly somebody who doesn't grok git.

Thought I'd revisit the blog a few days later to check whether Jarrod at least got the balls to say “sorry, dude". Turns out he simply deleted his own stupid comment and mine and Sitaram's along with it. Oh, and of course further comments are closed, now.

One reason I love Google's cache:

Anyways, that was really lame, Jarrod. Get some style.

Microsoft Getting Real?

Just read an article about Microsoft Germany saying that Windows 7 sells siginificantly better than Vista and that they sold ten times as many packages as expected. Another statement they made is that sales were five times as much. I'll leave the complicated maths to you.

Keyboards

After my heretic last post I just have to add that this external Apple keyboard is simply the best I have ever had the chance to type on. Ever. It's orgasmic. I am talking about the aluminum one, the slim one, the sexy one. As if there was any doubt.

And just to put it into perspective: I am a keyboard fetishist. Seriously, I am kind of an old-school geek and the keyboard is my main input device. I type a lot, I use keyboard shortcuts a lot. A lot less since I got a Mac but still a whole lot. To make things really clear: I used Emacs for a long long time. And I loved it. That's “Escape Meta Alt Control Shift” for all you GUI wimps.

It all started on a VIC-20 and a C64 and a C16 and a Schneider (Amstrad) CPC464. Boy, those boxes (and their keyboards) sucked. I loved them anyway. The only excuse I have for the lack of taste is that I was too young and inexperienced to know better.

Then the Amiga appeared on stage. It was magic. It was as if the NCC 1701 had appeared in orbit. (I'd prefer the D model but you might disagree on this one.) The A1000's keyboard was the one that made clear to me what a good keyboard actually is, as I hadn't seen one before. Low key drop, low resistance, super crisp keystroke. It was almost like touching a girl's body for the first time. (And now I finally know the reason why they picked the name for that baby.)

After the demise of Commodore and the Amiga I refused to buy a new computer for a few years. PCs just sucked (and they still do, less though, nowadays) and Macs were too expensive (and from a technical point of view they sucked, too). Eventually, when the Pentium was introduced, I decided I had to bite the bullet and bought a superexpensive PC with a superexpensive monitor and a keyboard that was, you guessed it, just as superexpensive. In fact, it was the most expensive keyboard available in the store. And I deliberately typed on all of them before looking at the price tag. The store was run by a geek and I told him my misery about keyboards so he told me to go ahead and test them all. After doing so I pointed at the only keyboard I could at least imagine to type on, without any doubt the best one available. He just gave me a smug grin and said “good taste buddy, got enough cash on you?”. Still it was no match for the A1000 keyboard.

And now, many many many years later, after having typed on so many crappy notebook keyboards, after having been disgusted, after having been annoyed, after already having resigned on that matter, I have finally found a keyboard that puts all the others to shame. And it is sooo stylish. Thank you Apple, thank you Jonathan. And thank you Dieter, I guess.

Well, that should be good enough to get absolution, right?

Fate of the Fry

This video triggered my admittedly weird humor quite spot on...

Foxy

Firefox 3.5 is out. I know, old news here. But the old fart^W^Wexperienced user that I am I usually wait for a couple of days until the dust has settled. I don't know about other platforms as I am too snobby to use any but the Mac version has improved tremendously. It feels quicker and that hardly ever happens with a new piece of software. Sites heavy on Javascript like GMail feel like you're on Safari now :P. And the scrolling! Finally as smooth and snappy. Not to mention the new porn^Wprivacy mode. Good job, guys!

Uptime

Just as I was about to blog that Leopard's sleep mode is finally stable that dang thing froze again. Well, at least 10.5.6 gave me somewhere between 40 and 50 days of uptime. Much better than the two weeks maximum I got before. Let's see what 10.5.7 will do...

Wir sind China

I guess you can only really understand the headline if you are German. Or if you are seriously studying Germany. Anyways, this picture found on mediengestalter.cc should be fine for anybody with a brain. Which clearly excludes German politicians.

Ursula takes action

Germany goes China

It seems they are really doing it. As a nerd I will never be able to vote for one of the big parties again. Ever. Well, at least I can move to countries like China or Iran now without sacrificing too many rights. Clearly, Germany likes its walls.

Even Macs are just computers

Every now and then even my Mac bugs me. For some so far (to me) unknown reason Spotlight hogged the CPU the other day. CPU usage was permanently above 150%, as reported by Activity Monitor. After a while that otherwise silent thing turned into a jet plane ready to take off. That's what fans at 6000rpm sound like. Plus the hard disk was grinding away so the machine was barely usable.

Googling did not really reveal anything except an article that gave me a hint that I still have to investigate: maybe Spotlight got stuck on a file. Although I think a grinding hard disk is evidence that Spotlight is not exactly stuck. Smells like some kind of endless loop, rather, and not one on a single file.

Anyways, the only quick way out of it was disabling Spotlight altogether. Great.

Do Mexican congressmen have a brain?

Can you believe that from April on you will be fingerprinted if you are impudent, no, impertinent enough to want to buy a phone in Mexico? I mean, of course, how dare you?! Stupid me, must be my government-mistrusting paranoia.

But seriously, that's creepy. And the excuse they come up with to justify it is hilarious. At best. It goes like this: there are a lot of criminal bands in Mexico and if they could get all the cell phone users' fingerprints everything would be fine. Yeah, right. Apart from that “argument” (joke, actually) being totally flawed, nobody could really be stupid enough to think that criminals who order kidnappings, extortions and drug deals on their cell phones would be good boys enough to not steal a phone? Or could they?

So yeah, to answer my own question, maybe they have a brain. A single one that they all divvied up.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

Who would have thought it is warmer and less snowy in Canada. I am freezing my ass off! And any other body parts, for that matter. Anyways, the Brits have completely different news about the white stuff. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

For the love of Telcos

The other day I was all over the “city” (town, rather) trying to get internet and phone. So I wasted almost a whole day. Ran to shops. Studied offers. READ FOOTNOTES! For fuck's sake, you won't believe how many "different" offers with how many more footnotes there are. The usual offer looks like this: 16 MBit* DSL, €0 upfront**, €0 per month***, hardware included****, online flatrate*****, phone flatrate******, and whatnot*******. And then there is usually half a dozen offers per provider. And there is at least half a dozen providers. More like a dozen (O2, T-Online, Congstar, Vodafone, Alice, QSC, 1&1, Fucknet, Arcor, Unitymedia, yadda yadda yadda). With lots of variables. And promises. And all the facts carefully buried in tons of footnotes. Apropos, the footnotes for the average offer from above go like this (shortened to the essential information because I'll move my sorry jet-lagged ass to bed in a minute):

* Maximum speed, your mileage may vary. (And if you get only 1 MBit, hey, we're happy you pay us for 16, we told you it's maximum.) ** Only if you sign a 24 months contract. (Once we got you locked in you'll see our real face. You got problems? Too bad, we got your money already. Try calling that 0900 number, it's only €2 per minute. Enjoy being put on hold for a while until we pick up. If we do so at all, that is.) *** For the first month. For the remaining 23 months it'll be €30. (If you're lucky, that is. If you happen to live in a place for which our random number generator said you have to pay more, you're gonna pay more. Usually 5 extra bucks. Um, euros. That's eight bucks. Canadian. Sometimes really just because.) **** Only the crappy^Hbasic model, €39 for the a-bit-less-crappy model. (You want decent hardware? Go buy it yourself. For a decent amount of money of course.) ***** For offers 2, 7, 14, and 42, other offers may be charged by time or volume, see footnotes 17, 18, 19 and 1452. (And I'm just too tired to type in more numbers. I'll leave it to your imagination how those paragraphs look like.) ****** Only valid for the network of [insert provider name here]. No special phone numbers. (And boy will we charge for any other network. And dare you make an international call!) ******* Really, you won't be finished reading that quickly in reality. Appreciate my mercy here. And believe me, you'll always have the feeling you don't have all the information to make an informed decision. Even after reading everything. Twice.

In Denial

I typed the following while I was on the plane. Surprise.

So I'll be in Germany very soon. But I feel I won't be "back". Nor will I be "home". I'm just leaving Canada. Despite that undeniable fact I'll post some unfinished stories as if I was still here. Well, “here”. As I am writing this I am in the middle of Canada, 10668 meters above the ground, going at 929 km/h, at a refreshing -57 centigrades. Outside, fortunately, which is well worth mentioning in that huge and not exactly tropical country. I tried to cheer myself up watching some silly Mickey Mouse cartoons but it didn't help. I loved that stuff when I was a little Thomas but it seems nowadays it takes a little more. Or just different things. Poor Donald is just getting rock'n'rolled by that huge turkey girl but apparently my favorite comic style has changed over the years. Anybody seen Paprika btw? Weird manga shit. Recommended. Not necessarily a cheer-up either, though. But at least a good time to send out a big hug to Mathieu et Julie. Apropos, I'm slowly getting tipsy. Again no upgrade to business but again a flight that has been selected for a customer survey. Read as “lucky old bastard's getting lotsa booze”. So far it's been Campari red wine red wine water coffee Baileys. Counting. Lufthansa, there's no better way to get drunk. Well ;).

Other than that I watched two movies on the plane. The first one was quite entertaining, Vicky Christina Barcelona or something (yep). The second one, however, was one of those that make you want to watch no more movies. Ever. Maybe it was just me being awake for about 20 hours after a very short night, maybe it was Richard Gere, maybe it was the lack of a story but it was just a pointless sequence of cheesy wannabe-meaningful/touching/moving/... scenes. I really couldn't believe that it went on and on and on and even the doctor died and that little teenage bitch^Hdaughter would suddenly be superclose to her mother blah blah blah. So cheap. Definitely not recommended. I so wish I could sleep on planes.

P.S.: omfg, I started typing my rant too early. Even the horses at the end. Could it be worse? No. Well, hardly. I actually expected doctor Gere to raise from the dead. At least they spared me THAT.

Toilet Humor. Literally.

Shot yesterday at UVic, CS building. Today, the lower one (which has been there since I got here) was removed. And I thought that one was a joke already... Seems like even geeks have humor. However, it might be the one of a thirteen year old boy.

High-tech urinals at UVIC

Close-up

Lighted Truck Parade

Um, I am a bit speechless about that celebrating Christmas thing with trucks. I'll cut it short: Well, why not? :P

Count those lights

The revolving thing was actually somewhat funny (aka psychedelic)

Oh, and sorry for the poor quality, going there happened kind of spontaneously and my cell phone takes even worse pictures when it's dark.

Australia

No, I haven't traveled, I'm still in Canada. That's the movie I watched last night. Let me put it this way: nice reminder why I stopped going to the movies years ago. What a cheap movie. Not in terms of costs I bet. A few nice nature shots, but that made only for a couple of minutes of what felt like five hours.

Mount Wells

So, second attempt today. As Julie was on Mount Finlayson yesterday we hiked up Mount Wells today. We took the bus to Colwood (or was it or Langford? I was sleepy :>) and met with Dominic and Vanessa. It was a comparably short walk up but nature and the view were still amazing.

On the way up

Victoria

Anything but

Yesterday the two “big planned events” didn't really work out. The day started great, another delicious breakfast at Lady Marmalade, that salmon benny was just perfect.

Then our plan was to hike up Mount Finlayson so we went to Langford. When we got off the bus, however, there were clouds that didn't exactly look inviting so we decided to have a drink first and went to the Teas'n'Beans. Pretty nice place, I think I had the first Jasmine tea since I was in Beijing. We stayed for a while and unfortunately the sky didn't really clear up. Well, strictly speaking the sky did clear up, it was really just Mount Finlayson that was in clouds. So we went to another place (called Station House) because we had stayed in the Teas'n'Beans for long enough to get hungry and had some dinner.

After that we went home and wanted to go downtown to watch a show at the Fringe Festival but couldn't convince Maude to join us. Well, I managed to talk her into joining Julie later, at the party, provided that I wait for her to get ready so we could walk downtown together. Well, what can I say, later Maude talked me into staying at home and watching a movie. Fargo it was, and I liked it very much.

Opa!

Last night Christoph, Nancy, Julie and I were at the GreekFest on Elk Lake Drive. The dancing show was quite funny, the PA's harmonic distortion was a bit of a torture, though. On the other hand, that might have also been related to the kind of music. All bitching aside we had a fun evening. Oh, and should you happen to be around, one plate of doughnuts for desert is plenty. Unless you're up for a greasy breakfast next morning, that is.