Not A Blog

last updated 1427119274

Introduction culled due to lack of relevance to the current status, feel free to suggest topics for a new one.

Looking for content where none might have been, I stumbled across blog criticism. One of Andrew Orlowskis columns ...
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Easy root for the Chiligreen E-Board HT400

I got a Chiligreen E-Board HT400 tablet to play around with, but no Clockworkmod recovery image seemed to fit, even the device's USB ID did not match any of the known companies.

$ lsusb | tail -n 1
Bus 001 Device 079: ID 10d6:0c02 Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd

Root access seemed ever so distant, but fortunately the firmware was not a production one, as I discovered after installing the Android sdk ("Tools only" is enough for using the Android Debug Bridge). There is one catch - the tools don't recognize the "exotic" device out of the box, so you have to enable the device manufacturer ID in the SDK configuration:

wget http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r24.1.2-linux.tgz
tar -xzvf android-sdk_r24.1.2-linux.tgz
mkdir ~/.android
echo 0x10d6 >> ~/.android/adb_usb.ini

Now you just need to enable the USB debugging interface on the phone (you might have to activate the developer options by tapping the "Build Number" in the "Settings" -> "About Tablet" Tab seven times, though they were already enabled on my device). I gather the more powerful options have been disabled in the production images, fortunately that does not hold for this tablet:

$ android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb root
restarting adbd as root
$ android-sdk-linux/platform-tools/adb remount
remount succeeded

There is no su binary on the system, but not to despair - Clockwork's Superuser Application has one, you just have to install it into your PATH. Above remount command set your /system directory writeble, so you can just use the one from the App after installing that (right via Google Play):

Using a root shell (adb root; adb shell) copy it and enable the suid bit:

# cp /data/data/com.koushikdutta.superuser/files/su /system/bin
# chmod 4755 /system/bin/su
# ls -l /system/bin/su
-rwsr-xr-x root     root       311872 2015-03-23 12:04 su

There! Now any app demanding superuser rights will trigger the Superuser app to ask you, where you can set policies as well, e. g. see above screenshot.
Irritatingly that does not seem to go for adb shell access where su is executed without any confirmation. Hopefully that is due to the privileged interface and not the glaring loopholes?
Please let me know your toughts and experiences (read more ...)

(en) 1427111045 (Mon Mar 23 12:44:05 2015)

Lierre Keith: The Vegetarian Myth

In this work Lierre Keith meticulously presents many interesting points concerning agriculture, sustainability, and preservation of resources and energy, which, as far as I can tell, are mostly accurate or at least plausible (as far as they are futurologic speculations). Unfortunately her arguments concerning vegetarianism, veganism, and medicine are far less objective.

Notes concerning Lierre Keith's book
The Vegetarian Myth - food, justice, and sustainability
Flashpoint Press, Crescent City, CA/PM Press, Oakland, CA
2009

(en) 1320417409 (Fri Nov 4 15:36:49 2011)

How Long Will It Take To Break Even With Sustainable Energy?

Since watching the preview for the movie The 4th Revolution - Energy Autonomy I wondered what it would take to reach a break even, i. e. generate 100 % renewable energy. Personally I am sceptical that decentralised energy production will equally empower people as it will benefit environment and society, but I did and do believe that it is possible to switch from fossile power sources to renewable energy. The movie didn't show anything groundbreakingly new, but it documents many important projects and people.

It didn't answer my question how long it would take to make the transition, which Wikipedia tells me is called the energetic amortisation time (the English version doesn't currently seem to have nice tables, so I used the German one for my estimates). According to that source, it takes 1.7 to 5.8 years for solar panels and 2.1 to 6.1 months for wind turbines to output as much energy as necessary for the erection. As far as I know maintenance is a lot higher for wind wheels, but that still makes a world of a difference.

So, how long would it hypothetically take to replace the entire energy production with renewable energy? I'm not a mathematician, so please correct me where I am embarrassingly wrong.

(read more ...)

(en) 1304337830 (Mon May 2 14:03:50 2011)

Viennale 2009 Plans

Fr 23. 10. 20:00 Gartenbaukino Orlando
So 25. 10. 13:30 Urania Adventureland
Mo 26. 10. 15:30 Gartenbaukino Les Beaux Gosses
Do 29. 10. 20:30 Urania Morrer Como um Homem
Do 29. 10. 22:30 Urania Domaine
Fr 30. 10. 18:30 Urania 575 Castro (cf. Milk)/Outrage
Fr 30. 10. 21:00 Urania Beeswax (o. 31. 10.)
Sa 31. 10. 13:00 Gartenbaukino Villalobos
Sa 31. 10. 20:30 Stadtkino Joachim Gatti/Corneille - Brecht
Sa 31. 10. 23:00 Stadtkino Beeswax (o. 30. 10.)
Mo 2. 11. 18:00 Gartenbaukino Terrorism Considered As One Of The Fine Arts
Mo 2. 11. 21:00 KuenstlerInnenhaus Im Bazaar der Geschlechter

Also, I'd highly recommend Female Perversions and The Girlfriend Experience if you haven't watched those yet.

(read more ...)

(en) 1255689752 (Fri Oct 16 12:42:32 2009)

The Roommate

My Australian roommates were quite nice, friendly and tolerant of my staying out long, too - first because they stayed up, too, but on Saturday evening/Sunday morning things got slightly out of hand. To start at the beginning, my room is at the end of a corridor, quite a long way from the reception. Within the first three days I had to go back down as many times to have my key card "fixed" because it didn't work any more, and so did the Australians. Well, on Saturday evening one of them didn't quite manage to any more ... he just slept on the floor in the corridor, which was where I found him at 4 am, just below half a bottle of cheap red wine on the window sill, even had a name tag in case he got lost. So I fetched a new key card from the reception and complained a bit about the situation (read more ...)

(en) 1246917976 (Tue Jul 7 00:06:16 2009)

Literary Pub Crawl (sans Pub)

I initially wanted to take the Book Lovers' Tour, but then missed it and settled on the Pub Crawl. The same guy (Allan Foster) does both anyway and he doesn't recommend to attend the other if you've seen one of them (read more ...)

(en) 1246890656 (Mon Jul 6 16:30:56 2009)

Fear Of Flying?

Maybe there's a time in every web comic when it becomes unavoidable to reroute at least one airplane.

It's a long-standing tradition. Actually this is one of the less intriguing subplots of Peter Zale's Helen, from whom I learned about Ayn Rand and the merits of technocracy and female bargaining power in addition to her computing skills.
The web comics appeared in the middle of the dot.com hype, long before the year 2000 or the fall of the Twin Towers. Peter Zale hit a nerve with the smart, nerdy hacker who ran in circles around the men in her life, save one, the even nerdier (for artsy definitions of nerdy) but less geeky Spencer ...

(read more ...)

(en) 1246122762 (Sat Jun 27 19:12:42 2009)

cleansing

It appears my walls are white after all, I'd wondered ...

Cleaned out approx. .25 m³ containing a 15" monitor, an old X-terminal, the carcass of a 10 year old server (that was in use exactly as long), a couple of keyboards for antique computer systems and floppies galore (even 5.25" ones which I never actually used but kept around in case I might need a boot disk). Negative Christmas can come.

(en) 1244829853 (Fri Jun 12 20:04:13 2009)

recovering Apple Mail .emlx files from a raw disk

It all starts out so simple: GMX introduces a new level of security long overdue and asks you to use the encrypted POP3 service over port 995 in the future. You try to comply, botch up something while trying to get Apple Mail to connect to your account with the old Setup, so you decide to delete th e old account settings and create a new server with the correct settings (read more ...)

(en) 1237502473 (Thu Mar 19 23:41:13 2009)

Running For Motoneurons

It's been a while since she's decided to run the London Marathon 2009, and her training seems to progress nicely, so now she's put up a donation page and asks to be sponsored. She also drafted a sweet e-mail asking us not only to donate but to forward as well ... however, if I did that I'd be a spammer, maybe worse even I'd have created a chain letter. But with all of you being here on their own accord (plus http/rdf actually being a pull protocol despite claims to the opposite) I don't have a bad conscience at all to send you there. Human interest story included.

(en) 1225310749 (Wed Oct 29 21:05:49 2008)

Friederike Mayroecker bei der Viennale

Ich brauche euch, ich liebe euch, lasst euch meine Liebe gefallen, sie geht haarscharf an euch vorbei

Mit dem sehr zarten, sparsamen Film Das Schreiben und das Schweigen über die Lyrikerin Friederike Mayröcker ist Carmen Tartarotti das fast unmögliche gelungen: nicht nur einen flüchtigen Eindruck, sondern einen fast durchgängigen Monolog von der Künstlerin zu bekommen, die keine Interviews gibt. Sie spricht über ihre Arbeit, ihr Schaffen, E. J. und das Archiv, das die Stadtbücherei ueber sie anlegt (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1224745303 (Thu Oct 23 09:01:43 2008)

Sunsets And Rising Spirits

I think I'm healing. In fact I'm great, feeling much less stressed-up than the past 10 days.

Unrelated, but still undeniable: It's incredible how beautiful a sunset can be - however, there are stronger experiences, like a walk with a significant person, that make you unaware of the beauty of nature.

Also unrelated, but moderately funny: Man jailed for life for hacking wife to death over facebook relationship status.

Original image here.

(en) 1224515889 (Mon Oct 20 17:18:09 2008)

Auf Uns!

Verehrtes Publikum,
Leider haben V. und ich eine traurige Mitteilung zu machen. Am vergangenen Samstag trafen wir uns, um zu ihrer Mutter zu fahren; vorher sagte sie jedoch noch, "wir muessen reden". Leider ist sie nicht schwanger - eine diesbezuegliche Rede waere vielleicht nicht einfacher zu halten, haette aber noch einige Zeit, bis Mitteilungsbedarf besteht. Nein, sie wollte mir nur sagen, dass sie sich nicht vorstellen koenne, mit mir alt zu werden. Das ist traurig, da ich einen betraechtlichen Teil meiner Lebensenergie auf das Altwerden und die Vorbereitung weiterer diesbezueglicher Massnahmen verwendet habe, ich studiere sogar Medizin, weil ich alt werden und mehr Zeit mit alten Menschen verbringen will, aber es ist natuerlich ihre Entscheidung. Zu ihrer Mutter kam ich dann doch  (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1224259200 (Fri Oct 17 18:00:00 2008)

night/morning impression

My sleep was considerably more troubled than yesterday, a frequent complication with drama ... it always seems to increase my ACTH/cortisol levels (not to speak of adrenaline). At least I was relatively productive this night - besides starting a good game of Scr*bble I found the brochure I was hoping for (complete with ISBN, an interesting read if only to skim - right margin of Monash University: Gender and Medicine), prepared my biblio and found a bug in the Vienna pentecost 2009 BookCrossing meetup registration script. Oh, and it seems I finished the e-mail I started writing yesterday morning ...

(en) 1223963061 (Tue Oct 14 07:44:21 2008)

Tapiocatraum

Eine Suche nach tapiocapudding+ohne+zucker geht leer aus, Google schlaegt aber freundlicherweise die getrennte Variante vor. Rezept: Schneller Sago - Pudding | Cremes Rezepte trifft es zwar nicht ganz, ich will lieber ohne Eier, Milch und Zucker und dafuer mit Soja Cuisine, Olivenoel, Sojadrink und Trockenfruechten kochen, aber die Grundidee des kurzen Aufkochens gefaellt mir (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1205952873 (Wed Mar 19 19:54:33 2008)

Otrdecoder Issues on Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 (etch/stable)

The GNU/Linux versions of otrdecoder have always been a strange hack, and the latest static multi format binary is no different: it is quite picky about where it runs, as I had to learn the hard way.

$ otrdecoder
FATAL: kernel too old
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Firstly it refuses to run on 2.4 kernels, which is all I need on my server; this is bad enough, but since I do have a workstation with a 2.6 series kernel, I hoped I could get away trading comfort for functionality. Not so, the binary did run (and even managed to load the name service libraries, which in itself seems bad behaviour for a statically linked program), but immediately complained that it could not connect to the server (read more ...)

(en) 1195243993 (Fri Nov 16 21:13:13 2007)

garbled mail exchange

----- Transcript of session follows -----
...while talking to mx0.gmx.net.:
>>>RCPT To:<xxx.xxx@gmx.at>
<<<550-5.7.1 {mx099} The IP address of the server you are using to connect to GMX is listed in
<<<550-5.7.1 the XBL Blocking List (CBL + NJABL).
<<<550-5.7.1 For additional information, please visit
<<<550-5.7.1 http://www.spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=217.196.64.204 and
<<<550 5.7.1 ( http://portal.gmx.net/serverrules )
5505.1.1 <xxx.xxx@gmx.at>... User unknown

Hilarious, but no problem - I have a clean unix network and no trojans, no obvious proxies on the mail server, so this must be a glitch. CBL has a very straightforward no questions asked unlisting policy, half an hour later I'm clean as a sheet and try to resend - same result (read more ...)

(en) 1192602268 (Wed Oct 17 08:24:28 2007)

(sich) Einladen

"Und was zahle ich?", fragt die selbstbewusste Schoenheit am Ende des Abends. "Nichts, ist schon bezahlt", antwortet der Wirt mit einem Laecheln. Sie blickt in die Runde, Verehrer hat sie ja genug, einer nach dem anderen schuettelt den Kopf - es war doch ihr Begleiter. "Er meinte, das koennte er nicht auseinanderrechnen", erklaert dieser. "Koennen schon, ...", verteidigt sich der, da er sich in seiner KellnerInnenehre angegriffen fuehlt. Der Kavalier legt eins nach, "aber es waere zu kompliziert."
Damit ist auch dieses Problem aus der Welt geschafft, und der Neuling, der eigentlich (noch) gar nicht zu der Gruppe gehoert und den Abend ueber schweigsamer war als ich, sieht sich wohl in seiner Rolle als verantwortungsvoller Ernaehrer wieder bestaetigt - irgendetwas muss er doch auch machen (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1179406287 (Thu May 17 14:51:27 2007)

pages turned

An interesting take on DRM-free E-Books has been suggested by Charles Stross in his blog, comparing the copying among friends to library and second hand use - rightly so, since such a market does not exist for digital books. He also has some numbers on book prices and musings about viable reader devices (read more ...)

(en) 1176845188 (Tue Apr 17 23:26:28 2007)

LTI revisited?

[...] das Europa, von dem die LTI jetzt tagtaeglich spricht, ihr neues Pfeilerwort Europa ist vollkommen raeumlich und materiell zu nehmen; es bezeichnet ein engeres Gebiet und betrachtet es unter konkreteren Gesichtspunkten, als das frueher ueblich war. Europa ist jetzt naemlich nicht nur gegen Russland abgegrenzt, sondern Europa ist auch in feindseliger Abwehr geschieden von Grossbritannien.
Noch im Anfang des Krieges war das anders. Da hiess es: "England ist keine Insel mehr." Der Ausspruch ist uebrigens lange vor Hitler getan worden, ich fand ihn in Disraelis Tancred[...]
Die Hoffnung scheiterte, an die Stelle des blockierten und angriffsbedrohten England trat die blockierte und invasionsbedrohte Achse, und nun wurde das "blockadefeste", das "autarke Europa" zum Schlagwort, der, wie man sagte, von England verratene, von den Amerikanern und Russen umlauerte, zur Versklavung und Entgeisitgung bestimmte "ehrwuerdige Kontinent". Lexikalisch und begrifflich eintscheidend fuer die LTI ist die "Festung Europa"

Victor Klemperer
LTI 3. Auflage 1975 Reclam Leipzig S. 173

Also damals schon, und aus dem gleichen Fundus wie so manches andere Vokabel der neuen Rechten und deren Vollstreckung in gemaessigten Regierungen... Dass, wie er einige Seiten vorher erwaehnt, "das System" durchgehend die Weimarer Republik meint, ist wohl im Vergleich nebensaechlich (read more ...)

(en) 1169683931 (Thu Jan 25 01:12:11 2007)

Die Wand und Schwarze Spiegel

Sowohl Schwarze Spiegel als auch Die Wand behandeln eine menschenleere Einoede, in der die ProtagonistInnen sich durchschlagen muessen; beide haben Munition und das Wissen, aus der umgebenden Natur Nutzen zu ziehen, allerdings findet Arno Schmidt (denn der Ich-Erzaehler ist unschwer als Alter Ego des Autors zu erkennen) Zivilisationsreste vor, die ihm das Ueberleben sichern: er findet nicht nur Zeit, sich eine Holzhuette zu bauen mit den Werkzeugen aus einem Saegewerk, sondern schreibt aus lauter Uebermut noch posthume LeserInnenbriefe an pseudowissenschaftliche AutorInnen und sucht sich in der Universitaetsbibliothek Material fuer ein biographisches Werk (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1169338247 (Sun Jan 21 01:10:47 2007)

RIP Zentralbuchhandlung

Erst einige Jahre zaehlte ich zur interessierten Kundschaft der besonders im geisteswissenschaftlichen Bereich und bei russischen Buechern und anderen fremdsprachigen Werken gut sortierten Buchhandlung in der Schulerstrasse gleich beim Stephansplatz, und schon ist das kurze Vergnuegen mit dem vielseitigen Geschaeft wieder vorbei: das Lokal wurde von Frick uebernommen, zwar soll nach Auskunft einer Angestellten das Niveau auf philosophischem und politikwissenschaftlichem Bereich erhalten werden, zusaetzlich ersetzen kuenftig Teile der fremdsprachigen Abteilung aus dem Stammlokal am Graben die Wuehltische; den Charme des Namens, der Programm ist, kann das aber nicht ersetzen, wie sich die neue Leitung auf Geschaeftspolitik, Sortiment, Image und Verlagskontakte auswirkt, bleibt abzuwarten - und ob etwa das Che-Guevara-Poster auf der Galerie irgendwann fuer eine Rock-Band steht (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1166446698 (Mon Dec 18 13:58:18 2006)

The West Wing

Kate Harper: You wanted to see me?
Leo McGarry: Yeah, with Nancy McNally out of the country you're gonne have to be our go to - I was gonna say guy, the problem with English - guy's wrong, gal is patronizing, and person sounds arch ...
Kate Harper: Go to guy's fine ...
Leo McGarry: Good, 'cause you're it ...

Some will find it typical for me to read this particular article, but Gesetz der Serie in Der Standard was the incentive to spawn interest in my latest TV series affliction, The West Wing, a grasping story about a fictional democratic USA president and his closest advisors, from which above excerpt stems. It is not only, as noted in the article and awarded with Emmys, a staccato of brilliant dialogue and bold camera movements in cramped office space, but also an interesting insight into how part of the executive branch of the US-American government works, and it has the hundreds of subplots that make it a great show. The above snippet shows only a small example of the many ways thought about PC occurs throughout the show (a more prominent example would be the latent pro-choice politics president Bartlett is exercising, or the Josh - Amy subplot, ...) - it's certainly safe to say that the liberal attitude of the show has polarized it's viewers, and, as the media directors put it in The Black Vera Wang, "We'll show the acceptance speeches. And the balloons. The balloons aren't news but it's nice television." (read more ...)

(en) 1165778301 (Sun Dec 10 20:18:21 2006)

spam report

After the yearly spamassassin upgrade (3.1 does indeed seem to have a slight edge over sarge's own 3.0) and quite a while after banning the spamcop.net "complete the report by following this url" mails from my inbox I decided to experimentally have them confirmed automatically using a LWP/HTTP perl script - since only those with a spamassassin score higher than the autolearn value as well as manually selected extra annoying false negatives get fed into the system, I gather it's a manageable risk; still I'd be highly grateful to network admins (I know you read this) for their opinion on SpamCop's nastygrams and possible alternatives ...

Update: a quick survey shows approximately 1000 mails/reports per day, I gravely underestimated that ... let's wait for the side effects. On a more sanguinic note, at least it's only 10 times more than the regular inbox count (including automated reports (read more ...)

(en) 1164151586 (Wed Nov 22 00:26:26 2006)

no man, no woman

Warum nimmt es mich derart mit, wenn die weiblich dichotomierten Personen sich in einen Channel zurueckziehen, um (vermutlich) ueber die potentielle (unerwuenschte?) Schwangerschaft einer der ihren zu reden? Es ist ein Phaenomen, das ich seit mindestens fuenf Jahren nicht erlebt habe und das immerhin emotional die Kritik am Gendersystem in mir staerkt und den Kampf dagegen umso sinnvoller erschienen laesst; die letzten Anlaesse waren, so weit ich mich entsinnen kann, ein FeministInnentreffen im Streiksemester 1996 (ich fuehlte mich irgendwie unwohl und -illkommen, de facto hielt mich das 10 Jahre von einer Vertiefung in Gender Studies ab), das Gegenteil davon war (bisweilen) in OEH-Arbeit, Beziehung und Genderseminar zu spueren ... gleichzeitig wurmt mich natuerlich die teilweise konservative oder sonstwie beschraenkte Haltung von Frauenbeauftragten und Karrieristinnen: ja, wir wollen unsere Frauen foerdern, aber am System nichts aendern, Maenner profitieren ohnehin: eh, die patriarchalen Dividende sind nicht zu leugnen, aber wir sind trotzdem alle Opfer einer Genderdichotomie - in emotionaler, materieller, sozialer - und letztlich auch gesundheitlicher Sicht ("maennliche" Medizin vs "weibliche" Langlebigkeit (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1164073946 (Tue Nov 21 02:52:26 2006)

Quake

Other people go on a holiday trip for fun and excitement, this geek just holds his ear to the wall and calls the firefighters on the resulting creaking. At 3 am this is by far the fastest way to get the company of approximately 10 metropolitan fire troopers (complete with helmets), 1 policeman and 1 policelady, all within a quarter of an hour, to visually check the house for cracks, take my name and depart asking me to closely watch the situation for visual changes ... I suppose this was the first tectonic activity I had the questionable pleasure of encountering in Vienna.

NB: The Hohe Warte Meteorologic Center offers earthquake infos and live seismic graphs, too - no clues though

(en) 1159233499 (Tue Sep 26 03:18:19 2006)

Hellas

Ich fliege in Ihre Wohnung, der Schluessel passt noch; offenbar lasse ich ihn stecken - es war mein einziger Schluessel, der angeberische Bund ist in der Realitaet zurueckgeblieben. Ich sehe mich um, eigentlich will ich Sie treffen, doch das kann ich nicht, zum Glueck schlaeft Sie offenbar. Ploetzlich jedoch regt sich etwas, sie erwacht, ich laufe zur Tuer, die von einem quer durch die Wohnung verlaufenden extralangen Bambusstab zufaellig noch offengehalten wird (wie konnte sie jemals geschlossen sein? Irrelevant, doch was bedeutet der Stab, der die Dicke jener in Blumentoepfen verwendete Art hat und mich an die zwei Meter lange Stange erinnert, die ich vor 20 Jahren noch in der Passagierkabine transportieren konnte, neben den Kaffeeexporten und Cachaca-Vorraeten der Mitreisenden?) und  (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1154347329 (Mon Jul 31 14:02:09 2006)

I've got shit to do ...

Guess there's something wrong with me
Guess I don't fit in
No one wants to touch it
No one knows where to begin
I've got more than one membership
To more than one club
And I owe my life
To the people that I love

He looks me up and down
Like he knows what time it is
Like he's got my number
Like he thinks it's his
He says,
Call me, Miss DiFranco,
If there's anything I can do
I say,
It's Mr. DiFranco to you

[...]

I could answer, I got to know lots of interesting people. But that would happened in the real world, en passant. I could mention the skills I acquired, commercial aptitude and geek-status ... but who cares. I always stress the relevance of both grassroots and traditional media content joining rows in the virtual domain of the net, but except for advanced search features (of which I'm still not sure wether they cost me my fluency skimming over a text) it would just mean more trips to the library - as for now, I stll have to learn not to purchase all the books I could ever want to read or cite ... The other point is communication, but emails are just a tad faster than letters: I hear penpals manage similar content throughput in both media (read more ...)

(en) 1153056736 (Sun Jul 16 15:32:16 2006)

jutesäcke!

Ganz klassisch im Il Monello auf Grund der örtlichen Naehe zum fsinf-fest wurden wieder einmal Teigrondelle verzehrt. Das Lokal hat offenbar wieder einmal eine Neuuebernahme hinter sich, seit dem letzten Ereignis dort (im Jänner 2004, wenn mich mein ... Gedächtnis nicht trügt ;)), die Karte weist noch immer mexikanische Spezialitaeten neben der Pizza auf. Das gestrige Highlight war das gefrorene Dauertiramisu, an dem Sue sich und andere den halben Abend erfreuen konnte.

(en) 1151733331 (Sat Jul 1 07:55:31 2006)

E-Mail

E-Mail: die beruhigende, zwischen synchroner und asynchroner Kommunikation angesiedelte Versicherung, dass auf der Gegenseite ein intelligentes Wesen des/der AdressatIn eingedenk und zum Austausch weltbewegender Trivialitaeten emotional und intellektuell geruestet ist. Wegen Schmalbandigkeit, zu geringer Synchronizitaet und Verringerung der Treffsicherheit durch nicht zielgerichtete Querschlaeger ausgestorben (read more ...)

(en) 1151456091 (Wed Jun 28 02:54:51 2006)

grill and deli

der llanero solitario bringt als vortrag lila solo in unreinen anagrammen, und wein fliesst in stroemen (aber erst am naechsten tag aufs blu(e)tenweisse tischtuch). wo ist der wintergarten, wo die bibliothek? doch die jahreszeit gebietet eine veranstaltung an der freien luft, und das grillgut wird diesem vorhaben auch nicht entgegenstehen. was sind ziel und zweck, was ist die auswirkung sozialer ereignisse? manche koennen beobachten und sich anpassen, andere lesen nach und perfektionieren die form, doch nie die manier; kommunikation ist alles, ganz direkt und ungezwungen, dem zwang zum small talk entgegen.

(de) 1150067742 (Mon Jun 12 01:15:42 2006)

À propos du Tibet ...

Toute la garnison était en armes, infanterie et cavalerie défilèrent devant les tormas. Le Dalaï-Lama, porté dans une chaise chinoise, couverte de brocart de soie jaune, passa, entueré par le général en chef et d'autres hauts fonctionnaires. Derrière eux, des soldats fermaient la marche. La fanfare joua des airs de music-hall anglais, on tira des pétards chinois et de très éphémères feux de Bengale jetèrent de fugitives lueurs autour du cortège. Voilà! le pontife-roi avait disparu.

Obviement, j'ai lu au moins un livre en Français. Inspiration encontrée ici

(read more ...)

(fr) 1148694316 (Sat May 27 03:45:16 2006)

Asperger Syndrome

deficiencies in social skills, ...
difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language)
Often overly sensitive to sounds, ...
"having a dash of Autism"
failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
no clinically significant general delay in language, ... cognitive development ... adaptive behavior (other than social interaction)
prosopagnosia

wrongplanet.net Aspergers and Autism Community
Aspergia e. V. Deutschland
Aspies e.V.
autismus Deutschland e. V.
autismus deutsche schweiz
Dianas Aspergerseite

Some courses do provide interesting insights (read more ...)

(en) 1147863100 (Wed May 17 12:51:40 2006)

no offense to Sweden ...

Do boarding schools provoke Stockholm Syndrome or should all schools be prone to that risk?

(en) 1147828734 (Wed May 17 03:18:54 2006)

Exkursion

Zuerst zeigt er uns den Betraum, von der Ehrengalerie aus koennen wir durch die Glasfenster einen Blick in die grosse Kapelle werfen, welche wir ueber die kleine Kapelle betreten und dann von innen bestaunen duerfen. Die Vermutung, dass im Keller noch eine kleine Kathedrale versteckt sein koennte, erweist sich als fast richtig: der grosse Turnsaal wird auch fuer Versammlungen genutzt.

(de) 1147810495 (Tue May 16 22:14:55 2006)

Right-Wing Republicans: To Laugh Or To Cry?

Should I take it as satire? It can hardly be seen as anything else, but still it reminds of past witch-hunts instigated in the United States (cf Arthur Miller) ...

Now, what about the dangers of Republicans to free speech?

Next time somebody asks you how Al Queda agents pay for their rifles and rocket launchers, you can tell them that foreign hackers make software called Linux which helps them steal from Americans.

(en) 1146131853 (Thu Apr 27 11:57:33 2006)

Here and Now

The worst thing is trying to get into a brand new CD.
These are angry, angry people!
"Open here", is that sarcasm? Are they mocking me, "Open here"?
And it's sealed with plastic - I've never seen this, thick, thick government plastic, I think it's government plastic, I've never seen it that thick before, civilians can't buy it, and it's like, is it fresh? Why is it sealed in plastic?

Except I usually do get into CD packages with my fingernails, but the show is still pretty funny if you like Ellen.

(en) 1146080005 (Wed Apr 26 21:33:25 2006)

Tribute to ...

dogville is, as was to be expected, every bit as impressive as manderlay, which chronologically inappropriately i had watched before. of course, it reminded me of the argument we had when first watching it whether or not it might symbolically represent us-american imperialism, or whether the power distribution and democracy abuse games were just that ...

(en) 1145487115 (Thu Apr 20 00:51:55 2006)

Herbs, Condiments, Spices

Obviously at least one premise I relied on for the past ten years is wrong: cilantro is not equal to culantro unlike I seem to remember they told me in El Salvador. I'm still proud of the promising seedlings ...

(en) 1145442331 (Wed Apr 19 12:25:31 2006)

Missing

He swung down sharply, nearly catching himself a nasty crack on the jaw with the doorstep and tumbled through the air, so suddenly stunned with what a profoundly stupid thing he had just done that he completely forgot the bit about hitting the ground and didn't.

Flying in my dreams is almost entirely unlike the method Douglas Adams recommends: I hardly ever have to miss the ground, and take-off is quite riskless, I just flap my arms (or at least fold them out like airplane wings), walk a few steps and off I go, or rather take. Landing has never been an issue for me in contrast to the horror stories others seem to experience with the ground falling towards them, for who'd ever want to return to the earth? I had one fever dream driving down the wall of a tower built of scrabble letters when I was about 10, though - honestly (read more ...)

(en) 1144624584 (Mon Apr 10 01:16:24 2006)

he said he was cold

he said he was cold and he knew his name, but he didn't know his age or he was pulling my leg, which would've been a good sign if he'd known how he got off the roof of the railway car and where his own legs were

(en) 1144513704 (Sat Apr 8 18:28:24 2006)

Eyes, A Smile

some faces you still recognize after years, even if they belong to a different person

(en) 1144463049 (Sat Apr 8 04:24:09 2006)

The Fallen Apple

So now they've done it: according to credible rumours, Apple have released software (open firmware updates and Apple drivers for windows) to install XP on Apple Hardware (read more ...)

(en) 1144256591 (Wed Apr 5 19:03:11 2006)

Schwierige Wahl

Wenn als Geschenk fuer den 15jaehrigen Schwager eines Bekannten (von seiner Seite) eine Nuklidtafel (Physik) und von Seiten der hilfreichen IRC-Channelbewohner eine Stripperin vorgeschlagen wird (auf den Einwand, dass das kommerzialisierend waere und allzu feste Geschlechterrollen vermittle, "er kann ja auch einen Stripper haben - oder ein Rudel StripperInnen" weiss ich wieder, dass zumindest nicht alle gejointen Channels von unreflektierten Chauvis bevoelkert sind), sind wohl selbstgestrickte Unterwaesche und anderes selbstgebasteltes auch keine echte Alternative. Langfristig bleibt wohl nur der Ausweg, dass er doch irgendwann Internet bekommt - dann kann er sich nicht nur Zerfallsreihen, sondern auch allfaellige Bilder (optischer und mentaler Art) von MOTAS selbst suchen bzw machen, ganz ohne, dass ihm wildfremde Leute mit politischer Korrektheit, Genderrollen und naturwissenschaftlichen Ambitionen dreinreden ... falls es dafuer nicht schon um 15 Jahre zu spaet ist (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1144159263 (Tue Apr 4 16:01:03 2006)

blog overload

This should bring an end to information overload not only in the blog world ... librarians everywhere are adopting those ideas. Of course, slashdot is also running a story.

(en) 1143936546 (Sun Apr 2 02:09:06 2006)

Geheimnisumwitterte Leopoldstadt

Nach Auskunft von google liegt Wien auf 48.219999° N, 16.369993° E. Das war schon in der Zeit so, als keine hochaufloesenden Fotos zur Verfuegung standen, und inzwischen hat das Publikum des Flex festgestellt, dass der Mittelpunkt von Wien gleich bei seinem Lieblingslokal gelegen ist (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1143879293 (Sat Apr 1 10:14:53 2006)

Logik

Es stimmt gar nicht, dass die lateinische Sprache das logische Denken so foerdert, wie immer behauptet wird - und jedEr, die/der sich damit beschaeftigt hat, kennt zu den Regeln die noch zahlreicheren Ausnahmen. Nein, die logischste Sprache ist das Ungarische, das (nach Auskunft von Native Speakers) auch das wissenschaftliche Denken besonders foerdert. Ausserdem gibt es kein grammatikalisches Geschlecht, sodass sich der Feminismus in Ungarn vermutlich auf Wesentliches konzentrieren kann.

(de) 1143746887 (Thu Mar 30 21:28:07 2006)

Zeitverwirrung

Es hilft gar nichts, Douglas Adams zu zitieren, Time is an Illusion. Lunchtime doubly so, und auch die afaik von Paul Watzlawick im deutschsprachigen Raum bekannt gemachte Weisheit spring forward, fall back hilft nur ein Stueck des Weges: wer den Wecker von 23:44 auf 1:44 stellt, steht zu frueh auf.

(de) 1143616031 (Wed Mar 29 09:07:11 2006)

Ohne Titel

Bei Betrachtung eines voellig unschuldigen Leitungsmasten komme ich zu der Erkenntnis, dass mein Leben viel zu hektisch verlaeuft und ich oft genug planlos Taetigkeiten setze, ohne dass etwas Sinnvolles dabei herauskommt. Diesen Schreck kann ich nur mit einem Becher Kaffee und einer halben Portion Zwiebelringe in der naechsten Filiale einer Fast-Food-Kette ueberwinden. Oder vielleicht kommt das auch nur, weil ich wieder einmal die S-Bahn versaeumt habe und daher Zeit fuer die Einnahme einer 23.42 Minuten dauernden Mahlzeit habe.

(de) 1143542259 (Tue Mar 28 12:37:39 2006)

Der Meister ist tot, lang lebe Ijon Tichy

Ich werde seine Analysen ganz sicher nicht irdischer Gesellschaften vermissen, die doch immer zum Nachdenken anregten. Seine Werke verdienen es, wieder und wieder gelesen zu werden, und leider - oder zum Glueck - kenne ich so manches davon noch gar nicht.

"Ach, einen Moment!" rief ich. "Soll das heißen, daß ich am Mittwoch, wenn ich du sein werde, versuche, den Ich vom Dienstag zu überzeugen, wie du das in diesem Augenblick tust, nur daß dann alles umgekehrt sein wird? Du wirst ich sein und ich du? Ich verstehe. Darin besteht ja die Zeitschleife. Warte, ich komme, ich komme gleich, ich habe schon begriffen."

(en) 1143481331 (Mon Mar 27 19:42:11 2006)

nur auf Besuch

Die Dame des Hauses heisst den spaeten Besucher willkommen, hat aber nicht viel Zeit: immer wieder kommen Bedienstete oder der sicherlich nur finanziell nicht unabhaengige Nachwuchs und fordern ihre Aufmerksamkeit. Zu allem Ueberfluss mischt sich immer wieder eine sehr kleine (stuende sie am Boden, wuerde sie wohl kaum bis zu den Hueften reichen, daher wird sie von Raum zu Raum getragen und macht sich von entsprechend erhoehten Sitzplaetzen bemerkbar), altehrwuerdige Lady ein, offenbar die Grossmutter, welche Tipps gibt und auf jeden Fall viel zu sagen hat (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1143400467 (Sun Mar 26 21:14:27 2006)

Es bleiben immer noch Eis und Schnee, ...

... die in den noerdlichen Gefilden die Landschaft praegen. Bei der winterlichen Umgebung fuehle ich mich wie auf einem fremden Planeten: aehnliches muss wohl Gurb empfinden, wenn er auf die Erde kommt (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1143319447 (Sat Mar 25 21:44:07 2006)

Stevie Smith (again)

She writes colorful, but hauntingly up-to-date prose; 25 years before Betty Friedan she seems to anticipate some of her feminist analyses of society ... the 35^th anniversary of the date of her death occurred on March 7.

First of all there is Fiction for the Married Woman. This is how it goes. Sure enough Miss Snooks has got married to that nice solid young fellow. But somehow the gilt is off the gingerbread. It is all washing up and peeling potatoes, and there are several kiddies, and the furniture isn't paid for, and it is already beginning to look like it was time for some more.

And I can so relate to some of her issues and topics, never having been one to socialize a lot in sports clubs and other gatherings (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1143131476 (Thu Mar 23 17:31:16 2006)

De los calcetines

El Profesor Leal soñaba con el regreso a la patria desde el día en que el barco lo alejó de las costas europeas. Indignado contra el Caudillo, juró no usar calcetines hasta saberlo enterrado, sin imaginar cuántas décadas tardaría en cumplir su deseo.

Aunque no hubieran sidos mis razones para ir descalzo, siempre me gustaba más esta explicación literaria que las más profanes, por ejemplo la aversión contra los zapatos o el gusto de sentir la tierra debajo los pies. En principio probablemente era un tipo de prueba de valor al frente de la sociedad, pero por lo general no se presentaba muy difícil; habian excepciónes en las instituciónes estatales de algunos países, pero la gente misma era amable por lo general (read more ...)

(es) 1143073893 (Thu Mar 23 01:31:33 2006)

Ein Kleiner Exkurs ueber Drogen in der IT

Aufmerksame BeobachterInnen wissen es ja schon lange: der Drogenkonsum im IT-Bereich ist ein tatsaechliches Problem. Dazu passt auch das Bekenntnis des Ex-Cisco-Technikers Kevin Herbert anlaesslich des 100. Geburtstages von Albert Hofmann, der seine groessten Erfolge bei dem Netzwerkunternehmen auf LSD zurueckfuehrt. KritikerInnen beobachten in manchen Bereichen aber auch seltsame Fehlleistungen ... vermutlich nimmt das Marketing einfach wie ueblich die falschen Drogen (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1142861235 (Mon Mar 20 14:27:15 2006)

Architektur von Kirchen und Tempeln

Gloria Steinem war es, wie mir unerwarteterweise doch noch einfiel, die schrieb, dass die Architektur von Kirchen und Tempeln ("patriarchal buildings of worship") einem weiblichen Genital aehnle (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1142814969 (Mon Mar 20 01:36:09 2006)

Tropic Heat

Bitten by insects, stiff from the hammock and sleeping in my clothes I get up for an early start and proceed on my way to the village. After descending the hill I find the river I had been expecting to reach the day before. I walk alongside for a while, then decide to cross it at a wide, shallow weir by hopping from one stone to the next. Afterwards it seems implausible I should have managed to balance the rucksack over the slippery stones: once or twice I had to take a step beside the boulders, wetting the boots and jeans. Slightly exhausted, I march on, drinking the last of my bottled water.

(en) 1142646800 (Sat Mar 18 02:53:20 2006)

Finanzmanager

Irgendwie hatte ich mir das nie so genau ueberlegt, was ich machen wuerde, wenn ich von einem fremden Konto Geld abschoepfen wollte. Die Arbeitsgruppe Identitätsschutz im Internet gibt darueber naehere Auskuenfte: die von Phishern trickreich erlangten TANs und PINs werden also vorzugsweise fuer die Ueberweisung auf Drittkonten verwendet. Mich verwundert nur, dass offenbar genuegend Leute ihre Kontodaten tatsaechlich leichtglaeubig auf Drittseiten zur Verfuegung stellen, sodass sich das auch auszahlt (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1142504006 (Thu Mar 16 11:13:26 2006)

A Night in the Tropics

On the other side of the valley I see a hut. The sun is nearing the horizon, so I hope this is the village; in a last effort, I traverse the valley alongside the anticline, my boots sticking to the muddy soil and making every step an effort, particularly with the heavy backpack. I find myself under a roof without walls, maybe a stable currently not in use or the half-dismantled hut of a hermit; this does not bother me, it's dark, I want to save my candles for later and I'm too tired to read anyway, so after suspending the light string hammock from two convenient beams I go to a light sleep fully clothed, except for the boots. A few times I wake up with the distinct feeling that animals are nearby and look for them using the flashlight, but I can't see any. Probably the most dangerous  (read more ...)

(en) 1142428830 (Wed Mar 15 14:20:30 2006)

aoe: Molecular Biology ... with a twist

It took me over ten years to notice the similarity between the images on the biochemistry textbook and a Beatles Album (that I didn't know about at the time) ...

(en) 1142384056 (Wed Mar 15 01:54:16 2006)

Am Fensterbrett

Auf der einen Seite der Hof, fruehlingshafte Sonnenstrahlen hinter der noch kahlen Birke, das Lachen spielender Kinder, Hausmaenner oder -frauen beuteln ihre Bettwaesche am geoeffneten Fenster aus, hoffentlich kein Akt der Aggression gegen meine Sonnenanbetung (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1142091940 (Sat Mar 11 16:45:40 2006)

Fun With CSS and FF

While for a long time resistant even to graphical browsers, meanwhile I am addicted to Firefox for many tasks, most notably reading - and the most interesting sites are often enough not the best-layouted ones. I can understand that, basic, standards-compliant HTML is paramount and rendering the content to the user's satisfaction is most definitely a matter of his/her personal taste (read more ...)

(en) 1142034799 (Sat Mar 11 00:53:19 2006)

Bakery Revisited: Commercial Availability of Edibles

In continuation of the other bread article I strive to elaborate on my findings with respect to purchasing whole-meal old style farmhouse bread in Vienna (and I'm not talking about tuscan farmers either)

The best whole-meal variety I found was made/sold at Naturkost Walter Brunnader, Kutschkergasse 29, 1080 Wien. Other health food shops also have palatable varieties, though usually less evolved in taste, leaven development and freshly ground flour (Mr Brunnader told me more about the temperature of the millstones than I cared to learn)

(en) 1139698953 (Sun Feb 12 00:02:33 2006)

#jutesack-pizzen 9. 2. 2006

Das Treffen ist vorbei, es war gemuetlich, Il Sestante hat wieder einmal ein gutes Geschaeft mit uns gemacht. Bilder to whom it may concern :)

(de) 1139533314 (Fri Feb 10 02:01:54 2006)

The Art of Collection Reduction

What do you get if you multiply a second generation professor emeritus with a bookworm (read more ...)

(en) 1139503615 (Thu Feb 9 17:46:55 2006)

A Foucault Finding in Vienna

On reading Michel Foucault's Surveiller et punir (Discipline and Punish, in German though since my French is not quite up to snuff) his vivid descriptions of the transformation from a control to a disciplinary society took shape in my head. One instrument he mentions multiple times is the panopticon, a building constructed in the shape of a ring, with a surveillor building in the middle; it dates back to Jeremy Bentham who (re)published the idea in 1791, detailing his elaborations with plans and appendices (read more ...)

(en) 1139097983 (Sun Feb 5 01:06:23 2006)

Odyssey to Stevie Smith - Bookshops in Vienna

For years I had kept the name at the back of my mind, and recently remembered or rather stumbled upon the poem Not Waving But Drowning again, which together with a remembrance of Our Bog is Dood roused a desire to read more of her works.

Finding a list of her published works was easy enough, though only her better-known works seem easily available; books like A Good Time Was Had By All or Stevie: A Play by Hugh Whitmore are long out of print ... (see also Lehmanns Online Buchhandlung, not reasonably bookmarkable (read more ...)

(en) 1138991031 (Fri Feb 3 19:23:51 2006)

bread in 3 hours

This month I have started baking bread on a regular basis: it smells good (when made with the right spices), tastes good (if enough salt is added) and is cheap and easy to make. I usually take approximately half wheat, half rye whole meal or white rye flour if I don't have any of the darker, tastier, more nutritious variety, knead a relatively supple dough (tougher varieties become even tougher when baked), let it rest for about an hour and bake for approximately 1 1/2 hours around 200 ° C. Sorry, no exact figures, as always ...

Originally, I wanted to write about me being a supergeek and syndicating these pages in 3 hours, but 1. it took slightly more than that, 2. no one wants to read about rss any more and 3. I got hungry and therefore had to start cooking :) so here goes the unadvertised rest (read more ...)

(en) 1138723783 (Tue Jan 31 17:09:43 2006)

Today: Switching Swirls for Feebles?

Out of sheer boredom I decided to try FreeBSD again after 8 years (it seems like yesterday when we purchased the server we couldn't find linux SCSI drivers for ...). It went remarkably well, but spiteful people read on:

(en) 1138632352 (Mon Jan 30 15:45:52 2006)

verlorene zeit

mit dreissig, wo manche der midlife crisis zustreben, frage auch ich mich manchmal, was ich mit meiner zeit getan habe (meine wenigkeit versucht eher infantilitaeten loszuwerden, aber dass seit meiner bewusstwerdung etwa 27 jahre vergangen sind, von denen ich nur einen geringen teil fuer persoenlichkeits-, einen noch geringeren teil fuer vermoegens- und einen nicht vorhandenen fuer freundschaftsbildung verwendet habe (zumindest, was bleibende effekte betrifft; ich bin hier polemisch und konzentriere mich auf die aktuelle situation), ist ein faktum (weiterlesen ...)

(de) 1138584079 (Mon Jan 30 02:21:19 2006)

reminiscences from the dawn of the web, oops, my discovery of the 'net

It was sunny 1995, and after a long summer winter came. No, totally wrong beginning (read more ...)

(en) 1138122203 (Tue Jan 24 18:03:23 2006)

sports

sports. I always wondered idly why I couldn't for saving my life be interested in persons running around on groomed lawns chasing balls, much less partaking in such or different activities of the physical kind. Walking has alwasy been fine, provided I had an aim in mind - usually the destination of the walk, but occasionally a stroll for relaxing the mind would also be appropriate.

(en) 1138113722 (Tue Jan 24 15:42:02 2006)

hurting myself the usual way

The end of a relationship, now I have experienced witnessed it, feels like I would imagine a crash on the highway with 100 mph. It's as (un)expected (everyone knows tyres can be lost or pinched, there are drivers heading the wrong way, and occasionally even lightning strikes ... usually twice, as they say, and who knows what it would to to the servo steering) and both hurt. That's a good reason not to drive and I have successfully followed this course of action for quite a while now. People have been known to voluntarily apply this strategy to relationships as well, but both intentional and accidental loneliness can end some day ...

Just hurting myself the usual way, practising style (comments welcome) and generally avoiding doing the tasks I had better accomplish ASAP.

(en) 1138057200 (Tue Jan 24 00:00:00 2006)

the fun we had

I plainly suck. This is not as much an expression of my depressive mood as my entire life-style. It's always been like that: I (try to) teach people backgammon and, whoops, three rounds later I don't stand a chance anymore. The only game I'm any good at is Abalone, and no one wants to play that with me (the remotely similar game Einfach Genial is also nice).

In real life it's similar; maybe the idea of becoming a teacher wasn't that bad (but then my pedagogic ambitions were never really intentional) - example: after a long-term relationship of exploring unix together and doing other stuff, $girlfriend takes a job the most highly famed bofh temple around and finally dumps me (these are, of course, in no way related events and it's entirely my fault I am a lazy sod. Still it's hard to live through, particularly since, of course, in true Helen style, she hasn't remained single long enough to knit another BSD Daemon ...) But I know I am ranting, I hope I am healing, I'd say I am better off writing disgraceful webpages than not; of course the real improvement would be to embark on something useful, worthwhile providing job fulfilment like, oh, LISA larting. Enter depression (read more ...)

(en) 1137970800 (Mon Jan 23 00:00:00 2006)

2005 revisited

the past year was, in fact, the year of the multiple online communities for me. after an enjoyable month of disassembling the firmware of my then camera to-be, with less results than efforts (later on, I even acquired a water-damaged model to dismantle and post the findings, or rather images, to the interested parties; not that there were many (findings; the gallery still produces hits after having been linked by various forums))

in 2005, I also made heavy use of eBay, which is arguably not only a selling platform but also a community, though the closest I came to using that was the report about a fraudulous "2nd chance offer" (if I say fraudulous, I mean just that: in my book it would have been ok for the seller to contact me out of eBay, shame on me if I took the chance and lost the money, but the person involved was a different one pretending to be the seller ...).
after selling some junk and buying lots of cheap, old, fun manual lenses almost unusable on digital bodies and enjoying the cheap fun of transferring cash across the atlantic I gave up that not-all-cheap pastime and went on (read more ...)

(en) 1136070000 (Sun Jan 1 00:00:00 2006)

Bargeld von Österreich in die USA schicken

... oder, wie mensch es nicht machen sollte

(de) 1132268400 (Fri Nov 18 00:00:00 2005)

Resuscitating A Hard Drive For Fun And Profit

This is the story of a failing 40 GB ATA hard disk with Linux ext3 filesystems. Some of the facts may be applicable to other incidents, however in part this description is specific to the Linux ext3 file system and the utilities working on partitions of that format. The partition table was still readable, so no recovery had to be done there, but other documents detailing faulty master boot records (MBR) and partition tables are likely to be available. As a rule of thumb, with an appropriate offset dd_rescue should work fine in that case.

After making a few quick changes to the index.cgi for the radio broadcast recording archive, I wanted to test whether the ogg->mp3 transcoder worked better now. Strangely enough, the webbrowser hung. I suspected the local gateway (this was at the house of my parents) and tried with lynx from somewhere else: same result. Soon enough, ssh sessions also slowed down and a login was almost impossible, only telling me that /bin/bash could not be read when it finally succeeded. I found a screen with a rootshell, and after confirming that the boot/root disk was showing read errors, I constructed a tar command line to back up the system. I wrote a mail to my girlfriend, the admin of the server, and went to play scrabble (read more ...)

(en) 1100127600 (Thu Nov 11 00:00:00 2004)