August 2004

Christopher’s Logbook

31 August 2004

Dear Family Hanson, Today Christopher and I drew a life-sized Christopher. While drawing we discussed what he enjoys doing (building Legos, riding bike, etc.). We also thought about what one does with the eyes, the nose, the mouth. Christopher said that one needs a mouth to keep closed at night and to eat spaghetti. I [...]

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Namentlich

28 August 2004

echtenamen.de, humorous German names, with occupation. A few even work in English, such as the ophthalmologist Dr. M. Blind. (via vowe)

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Come Out And Play

27 August 2004

If everyone is playing with Playmobil today, then Christopher is bringing his RCE train. He’s getting a little big for the Bobby Car, though.

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Communists for KERRY 2004

26 August 2004

Communists for KERRY 2004

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Case Modding

26 August 2004

Dave Winer is in Madison WI and looking forward to drinking Leinenkugel’s. Nice to see they have good taste in Madison. Leinenkugel’s comes from Chippewa Falls, which is also the birthplace of Seymour Cray, founder of Cray Research. A college buddy of mine who worked for Cray told me they used to include a case [...]

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Carrie Tollefson, Up Close and Personal

24 August 2004

I haven’t been paying real close attention to the Olympics, but I did make sure to watch the women’s 1500 m heat this evening to see if Carrie Tollefson would qualify for the next round. Carrie is from my hometown… welll, not exactly, she’s actually from the town next to my hometown. And, I don’t [...]

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Schröder Egged

24 August 2004

Demonstrators throw eggs at Chancellor Schröder in Brandenburg, although unlike with Helmut Kohl in Halle in 1991, they missed.

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Happy Birthday To Me

24 August 2004

Heiko notes that PyraLabs launched Blogger five years ago. Which means that I’ve been weblogging for five years. I just didn’t know what I was doing back then. (I’m guessing I saw it here.)

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Perspective

23 August 2004

I’ve spent the past several weeks anticipating, then learning, that my job is going to become less comfortable. I may lose it, I may not. Today a colleague of my wife, 25 years with the company, learned the results of her breast biopsy. Cancer, as aggressive as it gets. Tomorrow she learns whether the lymph [...]

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15 Minutes of Concentration

22 August 2004

Whenever I try to get any work done at home while watching Christopher, I have to think of an article by Joel Sponsky where he writes that it takes (at least) 15 minutes for a programmer to start concentrating on solving a problem, and that with every interruption, you have to start that concentration time [...]

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Olympic Schadenfreude

21 August 2004

Pepilog summed up the German TV coverage of the Olympics so far. My translation: “There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘you can see the athlete is disappointed’, but why do they have to say things like ‘that’s very disappointing for us’ or ‘Germany is deeply disappointed with the result’? For example, in the USA when an [...]

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Used Car

21 August 2004

After 150,000 km, my Twingo is on its last legs, needing new wheel bearings and, after a poor maneuver in the carport a couple of weeks ago, a new front bumper. Oil and TÜV inspection are also due, but it’s just not worth putting any more money into. So we’ve been looking at a replacement, [...]

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Four Weeks for a Mug

20 August 2004

According to Spiegel Online, a US tourist spent 4 weeks in custody awaiting trial for stealing a beer mug (value €8) from the Hofbräuhaus in Munich. Since the student from New Mexico resisted pursuit, he was charged with robbery (usual sentence: 1 year). The judge disagreed, and sent the student home with a fine of [...]

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I take it all back

20 August 2004

After saying that that I hadn’t heard of any phishing for German online banking passwords, I’ve now come across three in the past two weeks. The latest involves the Postbank, and gets around PIN/TAN authentication by asking for a TAN directly on the fake login page. I assume the “login” is never successful to make [...]

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Not Yet Gone

19 August 2004

At work, my department has been dissolved. My boss and three colleagues have been laid off, two of us will stay. The Betriebsrat tried to get a court order to block the action, but failed. I asked for a release from my contract, but was refused. I thought about submitting my resignation (which would mean [...]

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More Considerate?

19 August 2004

Neil wonders if this is really true: On the famed German Autobahn, where there are no speed limits, drivers are faster but more considerate. I don’t know. I very rarely see a Lichthupe (blinking your headlights at the car ahead of you to remind, er, demand they clear the passing lane), but then again, my [...]

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Light. End. Tunnel.

18 August 2004

It looks like we have a resolution at my workplace. I won’t tell the whole story until everything has been finalized, but it looks like I am going to be happy with the result.

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Lowercase Reform

17 August 2004

Adam Kalsey points to a change in Wired Style that internet and web are now written in lower case. Note that this spelling reform has nothing to do with politics, but what (now) makes the most sense. The Economist Style Guide is also a good source of good sense

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Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

16 August 2004

At work we’re a waiting on the result of a court order (einstweilige Verfügung). I thought there was a song about waiting on an injunction, but I guess I was thinking of Losing My Religion by R.E.M. So we’ll have to go with The Clash: “Should I stay or should I go now? Should I [...]

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Naturalized

15 August 2004

A Russian immigrant, Julia Matijass, won the first medal for Germany in Athens.

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Indiana Jones and the Workplace of Doom

13 August 2004

I’ve now tried twice to write a post about the current situation at work, one week before Black Thursday. But the suspense is just too great to reveal any details. Will the bad guys succeed with their evil plan? Will the good guys triumph in the end? All possibilities are open, and it makes no [...]

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Pinellas County evacuation

13 August 2004

St. Pete Times: More than 380,000 in Pinellas County (FL) ordered to evacuate in the face of Hurricane Charley. The area includes Indian Rocks Beach, where we vacationed the past two years. It even made Spiegel Online

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German spelling reform and linguistic ignorance

12 August 2004

Since I’m collecting English links on the German spelling reform, here’s another: A Fistful of Euros: Sprach und Sommertheater – German spelling reform and linguistic ignorance

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Hello World as an MT::App CGI

12 August 2004

I’ve been waiting for a consumer version of Movable Type 3 before taking a look at it, having been bitten by a couple of bugs in the developer version and the lack of (the now award-winning) MT-Blacklist. Both will soon be alleviated in the upcoming Movable Type 3.1, scheduled for August 31, which means it [...]

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The Great Spelling Debate

11 August 2004

Rainy Day: The Great Spelling Debate Another expat’s view of the German spelling reform

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Ooops I Did It Again

10 August 2004

My latest translation for Davids Medienkritik

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Phish Me Not

10 August 2004

Seeing Alwin report a plump phishing attempt to obtain online banking passwords got me wondering. Why haven’t I heard of anyone phishing for German banking passwords? There are, after all, a few million online banking customers in Germany. Probably because a password alone wouldn’t get you very far. Ever since the days of 300 baud [...]

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WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-DEU.exe

10 August 2004

WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-DEU.exe And I though Linux kernel versions were compicated.

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Getting It Wrong

9 August 2004

(Via InstaPundit) TalkLeft: Houston Crime Labs Face New Inquiry “Houston’s crime lab has been reeling for some time from the discovery of numerous convictions tainted by false lab reports. It’s about to get worse.” Thousands of cases spanning decades are to be audited in Harris County, TX, a “jurisdiction (which) has produced more executions than [...]

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Nick of Time

9 August 2004

As I arrived at Hauptbahnhof this afternoon, ready to take the S-Bahn to my park-and-ride lot, suddenly all southbahn S-Bahn traffic was halted. “Fire on the tracks at Wilhelmsburg. No S-Bahn until further notice. Passengers should take DB trains to Harburg.” Except my car was between Harburg and Hauptbahnhof, so getting to Harburg would not [...]

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