-0.5 (= 36.6)

Wild week 😆

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Afghanistan

… the way we don’t usually get to see it:

http://vimeo.com/31426899

Deutsch: Bilder aus Afghanistan wie wir sie normalerweise nicht zu sehen bekommen.

Posted in DE, EN, Gedanken, Thoughts | 2 Comments

-1.0 (= 36.1)

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Re: Oracle bought ksplice … and apparently the source was pulled

I contacted one of the good people from ksplice (I’ve got an active subscription) and got pointed to

oss.oracle.com/ksplice/software/

Unfortunately the access to a distributed version control is gone for good, it seems.

Posted in Administration, EN, Linux, Software, Unix and unixoid | Leave a comment

Die Bänker lachen sich ins Fäustchen

Man sieht sie schon zittern vor den Kameras, die Bankster. Aber das Zittern ist nur ein Zittern des Zwerchfells vom unterdrückten Lachen.

Die europäischen Staaten überschlagen sich mit Rettungspaketen und Geschenken an die “armen Banken”, die EU-Staatschefs und lupenreinen Demokraten kritisieren Papandreou weil dieser ein Referendum durchführen lassen will – eine der direktesten demokratischen Beteiligungsformen – und die Bänker gerieren sich als großzügige Retter in der Not. Gleichzeitig wird die Unabhängigkeit der EZB von der Politik wiederholt betont …

Hallo? Geht’s noch? Wer druckt die Banknoten und wer vergibt die Kredite von Zaubergeld (fiat money)?

Die Staaten bürgen also für ziemlich sichere Ausfälle anderer Staaten. Ein normal denkender Mensch würde das niemals für jemanden tun, wahrscheinlich nicht einmal innerhalb der eigenen Familie. In der EU machen wir das mal eben. Gleichzeitig wird betont, daß auch der Ausstoß aus der “Familie” kein Tabu mehr sei.

Ach ja, und was passiert wenn wir für die ausgefallenen Bürgschaften zahlen müssen? Genau, dann leihen wir uns Geld bei … ach ja, bei den Banken. Die leihen sich zwar das Geld bei der Notenbank (bspw. EZB), aber haben gleichzeitig das Recht Zaubergeld in ihre Bilanzen zu buchen, auch wenn die Eigenkapitaldeckung nur einen Bruchteil des Kreditwerts beträgt.

Das Geldsystem und die davon lebenden Banken sind das ursächliche Problem, die Schulden der Staaten nur ein den Banken willkommenes Symptom. Oder glaubt jemand ernsthaft Banken seien an der Tilgung der Schulden interessiert? Klar werden sie das so sagen. Interessiert sind sie aber eigentlich mehr an der regelmäßigen Zinszahlung statt an der Tilgung der Schuld. Es geht allein um “gute Schuldner” …

// Oliver

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Indignez-vous!

Gestern im Flieger las ich das Essay “Empört Euch!” von Stéphane Hessel. Kauft euch das Buch Heft und lest es!

Dies alles von einem Mann mit westlich geprägter Sozialisierung zu lesen, ist schon der Hammer.

// Oliver

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Whitehat, Greyhat, Blackhat

Sorry, it’s blatantly off-topic by all standards, but it’s an association I’ve always had.

Presumably you’ve heard those terms in connection with IT security. Now, often people have problems as to what those terms actually mean. Having an RPG background, I personally always compare them with magicians from the fantasy worlds 😉

In terms of the RPG system I used to play:

  • Whitehat == white mage, may seek knowledge, but will never ever cross certain artificially set limits or limits set by his guild, even if it means hitting the wall w.r.t. his knowledge
  • Greyhat == grey mage, seeks knowledge even by questionable means (from the PoV of a white mage) but will refrain from evil deeds or selling the soul
  • Blackhat == black mage, seeks knowledge by any means, will sell his soul to a demon if it means more knowledge

Hint: I consider myself a greyhat.

// Oliver

Posted in /dev/null, EN, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Android, what is it all about?

So I did it. I actually bought a cheapo Android phone (Simvalley SP-60) with dual-SIM feature, because that’s the single most important feature of a phone for me.

Of course I went immediately to the privacy settings to turn off all kinds of synchronization options. However, it turned out that this wasn’t really needed until after I had entered the details of a (newly created) Google account. Honestly, why do I have to store my contacts on a Google server in order to get them into my phone? Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Having that option may be nice, but being forced to go this route is kind of scary given the market power of Google. So they don’t just want to know just about everything about all kinds of habits through your search terms, the documents you write and the emails you send and receive, now they also want the offline contacts as well.

The only alternative, I hear, is to “root” my phone. This is exactly what I’m going to do once back in Iceland, because I find it an unsettling thought that Google is collecting all this data. I want to be able to edit my contacts offline and to use my phone the way mobile phones used to work, while having a small portable wireless-capable machine available if the need be.

For now I’m back to the Nokia C2-00.

// Oliver

Posted in EN, IT Security, Software, Thoughts | 8 Comments

240 x 25 m in 173 min

Set this record one week (minus some hours) ago, but forgot to mention it. Yes, it was beaststroke as usual.

// Oliver

Posted in EN, Swimming | Tagged | 2 Comments

-3.3 (= 35.1)

More than I bargained for. I’m puzzled. 😯

Also most hilarious situation two days ago. When I was paying the sweets I am going to take along to Iceland on my flight tomorrow, one of the guards from the public pool stood in the queue. You should have seen her face when noticing the sweets. Probably she is now asking herself why I’m swimming so much when at the same time I also “sin” like that :mrgreen: … still looking forward to the gossip and reactions.

35.1 kg is approx. 77.38 lbs

Posted in EN, Weight loss | 7 Comments

-0.9 (= -31.8)

Whatever 🙄

Posted in EN, Weight loss | 2 Comments

FLOSS not sustainable for companies?

A few weeks ago I reported about ksplice whose Git repository had disappeared. Now the same happened for Likewise Open which was bought by BeyondTrust. After renaming the repository and moving its location from git://git.likewiseopen.org/likewise-open.git to git://git.likewiseopen.org/bt-identity-open.git it now also disappeared from the latter.

I still have copies of the latest state of the older and the newer repository in case anyone needs them. When I find some time I’ll simply bundle them and put them up for download.

// Oliver

Posted in Administration, EN, Linux, Software, Thoughts, VCS | Leave a comment

“10 Things You need To Know About Losing Weight”

The documentary of that name from the BBC – by Michael Mosley – was now being broadcast on German channel ZDF. Unfortunately only dubbed.

However, just like for the guy in the documentary who loves dairy products, the best news for me is:

Eating low-fat dairy products helps the body to excrete more unabsorbed fat than usual.

Yay! :mrgreen:

The other good news which I can confirm is the “afterburner effect” that basically states that the BMR will be increased by regular sports activity, leading to fat burning even throughout times of rest. And, dear bodybuilders, that does not just work with the huge muscles from weight lifting 😉

// Oliver

PS: the first link is not to endorse the products on that website, but it contains the information from the documentary in compressed form.

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“Signs that you are a bad programmer”

This list is interesting and certainly contains some valid points, but I’d argue that some of the symptoms may also be a sign that you are simply maintaining legacy code that has outlived its life-expectancy for too long and perhaps didn’t have a sound architecture in the first place.

Besides, my argument would start with symptom one already, which claims that:

initializing variables that are never used

is a bad thing. Excuse me? Since when? Certainly there are differences between programming languages here, but I’d rather have deterministic behavior in my code by initializing the variables with some known value, rather than random behavior that depends on the contents of the memory prior to the execution of my code. Frankly, in this very case I’m of the exact opposite opinion and think that you are a bad programmer if you don’t initialize variables when you declare them (for example in C). Compilers are smart enough to figure out what’s needed and what’s not and will throw out any redundant initializations and completely throw out unused variables. So perhaps not initializing variables is a sign that you are an incompetent programmer that doesn’t know his/her compiler?! 😐

Either way, except for the first section “Inability to reason about code” this self-test is certainly worth a read.

// Oliver

PS: Don’t get me wrong about the initialization of variables, though. If they are unused, they should be removed from the source code as well, but more often than not their appearance in the source code is a sign of improperly set #ifdefs or code changes where the programmer forgot to remove them (or did not notice their redundancy at the end of a change). But for this task there are tools like PCLINT or the compilers themselves which are much more efficient at spotting these.

Posted in C/C++, EN, Programming, Software, Thoughts | 1 Comment

-1.2 (= -30.9)

Don’t know whether I will have a scale available the next few days, so one day early. Now don’t call me a cheater! At least not with this one – for computer games okay, but not here 😉

PS: Monday saw a new personal record: 53 min for 80×25 m.

Posted in EN, Swimming, Weight loss | Tagged | Leave a comment

Chew 25 times, lose weight? …

It could be part of the recipe at least. Subway has a detailed tutorial 😉

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-1.7 (= -29.7)

So much for slowing it down 🙄

Posted in EN, Weight loss | 1 Comment

A promising project

… for malware analysis in a sandbox. Check it out over at www.cuckoobox.org.

Posted in EN, IT Security | Leave a comment

Teeren und federn …

… fiel mir gestern zum Thema Verantwortliche bei der Deutschen Bahn und bei der Stadt (zum Thema Kreisverkehr) ein, als ich zehn lange Minuten Zeit hatte darüber zu sinnieren, da die Bahnschranken am Kreisverkehr beim Wasserturm gleich zweimal unten waren bevor ich drüber war 😕 …

Die Probleme werden sich noch verschlimmern, da die DB sich nun, da der Kreisverkehr fertig und die Sperrung aufgehoben ist, entschieden hat, daß man den Bahnübergang doch noch erneuern könnte. Damit haben wir:

  1. Ein Kreisverkehr der den Verkehr einer der Hauptverkehrsadern auf eine Spur verengt und jeglichen Verkehr verhindert – Unfallpremiere haben wir mit meiner Großmutter “feiern” dürfen, die seit ihrem KH-Aufenthalt nicht mehr ganz die alte ist
  2. Eine erneute Sperrung dieser Hauptverkehrsader dank DB AG
  3. Eine clevere Planung welche garantiert, daß diese Sperrung synchron mit der Sperrung zweier der drei Ausweichmöglichkeiten einhergeht
  4. Rangieren der Loks geht selbstverfreilich nur mit Blockade der Hauptverkehrsader, da auf der anderen Seite ja nur einige Kilometer unbenutzte Gleise liegen

Denen, die vorsätzlich die Lebenszeit hunderter Menschen stehlen, sollte man doch zumindest legal kleine Unannehmlichkeiten wie das Teeren und Federn zumuten können, oder? 👿

// Oliver

Posted in DE, Gedanken, Ich, der Zyniker | Tagged | 2 Comments

160x25m in 110min

Five lanes all for me the whole time :mrgreen:

Posted in EN, Swimming | Tagged | 4 Comments