Thu, 16 Nov 2006
Instilled modesty ...
Is a bad trait for a blogger! The time and enery I invest into writing blog posts that I then never post, thinking "Actually ... who cares."
Gah!
Posted at: 13:22 in /english/musings
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Mon, 02 Oct 2006
A few firsts
It's been a while. Again.
I've been horribly busy. Still.
Did some cool stuff though, among the usual daily blurb I am proud to announce a few firsts: I uploaded my first package, fixed my first serious bug, went to my first Wizards of OS and passed the final exam in my second minor with the best possible grade (I passed the other one last summer. Only the major, information science, is left now.)
One of these days I'll write posts beyond "Been a while, did this and that." again. Really.
Posted at: 01:11 in /english/debian
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Sat, 05 Aug 2006
1st Anniversary
According to our rather rough (and slightly guessed) reverse calculations, it is today exactly one year since the man who introduced me to xfce4, M*A*S*H, and an incredible amount of happiness entered my life.
Many happy returns!
Posted at: 19:46 in /english/personal
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Thu, 27 Jul 2006
What life's been like
It's been quite a while since my last post, so this will mainly be an update on what I've been up to the last weeks or even months.
Overall the past time has mainly been pretty busy. It was the end of the semester, a time that always brings a lot of work, and in this case it was the end of my last semester, which adds a little extra pressure to the whole business, since I didn't only have to take care of the usual stuff, but also had to arrange for an appropriate topic for my upcoming thesis, which is always a kind of a "balancing act". Things are however looking good now and I am quite confident that I'll be able to spend the six months I have for my thesis on a subject that actually interests me, my tutors, complies with the official guidelines, has some purpose beyond getting me a Master of Arts AND EVEN has a realistic chance of actually working out! Yay academia!
Apart from university work I've been kept additionally busy by my jobs, which unfortunately also both had a kind of peak during the last weeks. The problem about this is, that actually both of them were intended to be "only-jobs" since they both provided me with enough money and consumed just as much time as I could spare during the semester. But then I got accepted for both of them and absolutely couldn't decide which one to chose (one was at the university as a teaching assistant, the other at a pretty cool IT security consultant's) so I did both and have been juggling those two, my studies and actually getting to sleep/eat every now and then during the last weeks. This has been pretty exhausting, but on the bright side, I have a little spare money now to spend while the holidays. (Luckily both bosses are on a 3-4 week trip in August :))
One thing that suffered rather greatly from my very tight schedule this semester (apart from my horribly neglected sweetie of course) was my Debian/Free Software work that got almost entirely stalled ever since I returned from DC6. So I hope to be using the more quiet summer months to spend some time on this, maybe write a nice new talk and package some things I've had my eyes on for quite a while already.
Oh, and I'll sleep. A LOT!
PS: Last night, to celebrate the end of the semester, we went to see the Pirates of the Caribbean double feature. Hilarious!! Go see it!
Posted at: 15:04 in /english/personal
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Fri, 02 Jun 2006
Cool sysad trick #3625
When moving your MX to another server, remember to also change
your MUA's settings to query the new server instead of the old one.
Should you have sent mail to my alphascorpii.net account last month and not
received an answer, this is why. I finally noticed now and am currently in
the process of answering these mails.
And there I was, wondering why there is so little mail to the shiny new address ... Hngh!
Posted at: 13:50 in /english/personal
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Sun, 28 May 2006
Lost my mobile phone
I case you wrote me a text message or called me on my mobile phone
lately and never got a response, here's why: It's gone.
I lost it
some when between arriving at FRA airport on Monday evening and looking for
it before going to uni on Wednesday morning. I already checked with the
German Rail's lost and found service which - unsurprisingly - was little
helpful. Basically they now have all my personal info, a detailed
description of my mobile phone (Siemens C55, blue, battery empty, sim card
pin-protected, transparent sticky tape on back that holds the battery
cover) and told me to call back later since they haven't found anything
yet. I have not yet given up completely, but for the moment please don't
try to call or text me on my mobile phone. Use my home number or (much
better) Email.
The phone was nothing special, but I am still pretty unhappy about its loss, since I don't have the money to get a new one (this one was a gift, yet another reason why losing it sucks bigtime!) and it holds a few numbers that I don't have anywhere else.
Oh well, just not my week. At all.
Posted at: 23:21 in /english/personal
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Still jet lagged
Although I've back from DebConf6 for almost a week now, I somehow still suffer from the jet lag. I am rather surprised by this since I usually don't have too many problems with changing my sleeping times and also the jet lag when going from Germany to Mexico was practically neglectable.
However, this one is a real sucker! By now my sleep times are pretty much erratic, I have an almost constant headache and my stomach gives me trouble after each meal. Surprisingly I didn't have any problems with such stuff when I was in Mexico! I was neither sick nor heat struck or dehydrated. In fact I didn't even have so much as a sunburn. But ever since I got back, life has been pretty yargh.
Why am I posting this?- I feel like whining
- I've been almost constantly offline since I got back - let this be an excuse
- I've been pretty grumpy since I got back - let this be an excuse
- My backlog is still lieing idle for the most part - let this be an excuse
- I feel like whining
Posted at: 23:05 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Wed, 24 May 2006
Back home from DC6
So, I am back home. After a 24 hour journey we arrived at Tolimar's
place Sunday night, after a journey that sadly was not as nice as the one
to .mx. First we departed about 1/2hr late from Oaxtepec since the
backpack of a fellow traveler was ridden over by a car. Than our taxi
driver charged us 900MXN for the trip to the airport, although we had
agreed on 800 before we left.
Once in the airplane our machine had an
engine problem and could not take off. We waited for about 2.5hrs while the
inside of the plane steadily got hotter and hotter. Due to this we also
missed our connecting flight at Heathrow and were rebooked on a later
flight. Probably due to this Tolimar's luggage didn't make it on the same
flight and had to be delivered to his house on the next day. Once we had
finally reached Frankfurt we went to bed and slept for 16hrs straight. Got
back up at about 5pm today, took the train to Hildesheim and am now finally
home!
No DebConf6 conclusions yet. I am in full EndOfEvent/jet lag mode and feel deader than the frozen chicken (Chicken! Of all things!) I just dug out the icebox of my otherwise totally cleared out fridge. At the moment the predominant feeling is a mixture of "Wow, that was a trip!", profound tiredness and regret about all the things I had planned to do but found no time then.
PS: Bubulle, flattery won't help you. I'll get you for this!
PPS: Time to write postcards. ;)
PPPS: I'm freezing!!
Posted at: 00:55 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Sat, 20 May 2006
Materials concerning my talk ...
will be put up on my website sortly. (I.e. as soon as I fixed the typo and replaced the transparent png that f***s up OpenOffice's PDF export IN EVERY SINGLE SLIDE :( I should really start using beamer or magicPoint or something ...)
Posted at: 20:59 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
DebConf 6 - Random fun stuff There is a couple of things that we have a real abundance of:
- Huge insects that produce an incredible amount of annoying noise
- Cats and baby kittens (aaaaw)
- Chickens, especially chicken legs
- Tamarind flavoured water (tasty)
- VW beetles and VW buses (serving as taxis and normal public transportation buses. Hint: If it's white and turquoise, board it. If not, don't!)
- Epura filtered water bottles (cowards! ;-))
- Thinkpads (all over the place)
- People looking for the server room / info room key
- Real nice fruit, lots of!
- Creative sunburns
- Limes (mostly in halves)
- Straw hats
- Brixen boys
- SUNSHINE
Some more random remarks:
- The group picture has been taken. Why everyone has their mouth open? "Everyone say Tequilaaa"
- Christian: thanks for all the praise! You've always been my favourite pupil ;)
- When I got out of the pool the other day, wearing my really fancy new
bikini (special DebConf purchase), I got a compliment from the pool guard!
He said: "You swim well." :-| - Mucho luurve goes out to Benny!
- Christian, we took a Taxi, but apparently the bus works, too.
- People at home: I've been dropping roughly one safety
precaution per day. I eat whatever looks tasty, drink tap water and have
ice in my other drinks. I only put on sun screen of special occasions (i.e.
day trip), walk barefoot without looking down all the time, and don't check
my bed for scorpions before getting in.
I am still fit as a fiddle!
Seems Mexico isn't such a dangerous place after all. Relax everybody! :) - Mexico: I'll be back. One day. Promised!
Posted at: 20:35 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
DebConf6 - Formal Dinner
Not much to say about the formal dinner. It was certainly a night to remember. A couple mishaps but also a lot of fun once the excitement had subsided. For more detailed accounts of that evening please refer to Joey Hess' wonderful article. For an account of the following night, or rather its results, please refer to debian-private or this DebConf6 blog post.
Posted at: 19:44 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
DebConf6 Day Trip
As anticipated things began to run much more smoothly once the
conference had actually kicked off. Which was quite good, since
Wednesday/Thursday were pretty active days with the Day Trip on Wednesday
and the Formal Dinner on Thursday. I had not been to sure whether I should
go on the day trip or just stay home and sleep in for once, go to the pool,
rest a bit and basically do all the other stuff I didn't get around to
since I got here. In the end I did go though, and I am really happy about
it now. At least for me the day trip was a full success! We were picked up
around noon by a fleet of absolutely awesome fifties buses, all
streamlined with loads of chrome, pastel colours, saints icons, playboy
bunny heads and nice comfortable plush seats.
Xochicalco is a pretty
interesting site and our guide gave us a really nice tour of the museum and
the ruins. I didn't really mind the heat since I had put on enough sun
screen and brought long loose fitting cloths and a lot of water. Such
equipped I actually even enjoyed the dry heat and of course the spectacular
site. As usual, I did take pictures and haven't found the time to actually
upload them yet.
After the tour of the ruins we went for a late lunch to some place of which I sadly don't remember the name. The food there was the best I've had through the whole DebConf and it was pretty fun. One of the kitchen ladies wanted to take a picture with me. Don't know why, but it was pretty amusing since the whole kitchen crowd seemed to have immense fun with the whole thing. So, whatever, maybe one day I'll come back and find the picture on a wall. Who knows :)
After finishing our meal we went to Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos State, which has a large handicraft market. Unfortunately I had taken much more time for the lunch than anticipated so we only had 45 minutes to have a walk and buy some souvenirs. But it was fun anyway. The only drawback of the day was that we had to skip the guided tour in Cuernavaca since we were so late and had to be back to Oaxtepec for dinner. But there is already quite a list of stuff I actually wanted to do when here, so a tour of Cuernavaca goes to the long "One day I'll be back" list.
Summary: Great Day Trip! Well done. Cool buses!! Have to extend that once I am back *sigh*
Posted at: 19:20 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Wed, 17 May 2006
DebConf 6 - the first days
DebConf6 has now officially started! So far I sadly haven't seen any talks, since I've been busy with orga stuff (making signs, collecting reimbursement forms, receipts, passport copies etc, speaker training, chasing people for information/keys/cables/...). I hope I'll have more time once things get going.
I've also given two speaker training sessions already, one on Saturday and another one on Sunday evening. They've both been pretty well attended (six to eight people, which is the almost ideal size to have a decent number of opinions but still don't have it take too long for everybody to have a go.) The Sunday evening session was a bit shorter since it was scheduled pretty late (21:30) and most participants (including me) felt tired after a while. I also noticed that I started being rather unconcentrated, so I only did a few more active exercises and skipped the rather dreary pronunciation stuff. I haven't yet received much feedback on the sessions but all attendees seemed to have fun, and there definitely was noticeable improvement in people's speaking skills over the time of the workshop.
It is now Wednesday morning and everyone is getting ready for the day trip. I am really looking forward to it, even though my ankle is still acting up a bit (sprained it last week). I will also take my camera along and hope to finally take a few pictures.
Posted at: 16:47 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Sat, 13 May 2006
Arrived in Mexico
It's taken a while, but now I am finally in Oaxtepec and online! The journey was not too bad, pretty long of course, but otherwise fine. The vacational centre in Oaxtepec is a great venue! Tasty food, nice rooms, comfortable hacklab, beautiful surroundings and a laaarge pool. It's really warm here and I am truly enjoying myself. The internet uplink caused some trouble during the first days, which is why I haven't posted earlier, but everything is fixed now and everybody is in good spirits. There are still the usual minor annoyances, but overall we're fine.
Tomorrow the official conference will kick off with the DebianDay. A special day with more general talks aimed at beginners and interested locals. The day after that the actual developer conference will start, featuring talks, workshops, round tables and lots of BoFs.
I am particularly looking forward to tomorrow since it's also the day when maxx arrives, bringing along his old laptop for me to use. I've been without one since I arrived here, since my own one is still broken, and it hasn't exactly been fun being without a laptop. (Not to say it truly sucked!!)
Posted at: 07:12 in /english/debian/events/debconf6
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Finally!
After announcing it
for ages I've finally managed to move almost everything I have online to my
own (v)server. It's being hosted by Ganneff (Thanks! :)) and already hosts
my webpage and my blog which has also gotten a full
redesign. The horrible table mess has been replaced with css and clean
html, Sartre and Nirvana gave way to Johnny Cash. There might still be some
changes on the blog, since I am still fiddling with it, but the rough
layout stands.
Big thanks to youam and aba who hosted the sites
in the meantime. If you have any bookmarks or feeds pointing to the old
blog url at youam.de please change them to point to blog.alphascorpii.net instead,
since the old blog will probably be taken down soon.
Posted at: 07:05 in /english/meta
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Sat, 01 Apr 2006
For those who wondered ...
I am still alive and ki^W^W^Wrenovating. Unfortunately net access took a bit longer than expected and I am still offline :(
According to my provider I'll get my line on Thuresday the 6th. Yay!
I am now at the uni, trying to work through my two-week backlog. Please be patient.
See you soon, hopefully!
Posted at: 14:21 in /english/personal
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Fri, 17 Mar 2006
Moving, again
Another move, another new address, another new phone number, another (snail) mail forwarding form, another city, another flat. Packing boxes and bags again ... I am once more on the move. (And slowly getting good at it ;))
This is my last day in Leipzig. *sigh* My internship here is over. Can't say much on how the internship was, since I signed a whole pile of NDAs, but I guess I can say that is has been a very educational experience and I learned a lot. Leipzig itself is still awsome and I'll miss it badly! It is such a great place to live at and I hope I'll return here one day. But for now I am returning to Hildesheim to finish my studies and write my thesis. No idea yet what will come after that. A few vague plans, but nothing ripe for decision. So, no prognoses yet. Nothing endures but change ... :)
I'll probably be offline for the next few days, since the phone/net connection isn't there yet. I'll occasionally check mail/irc at the uni but please allow for a little lag until I have settled in properly.For now, a last good bye from Leipzig. Be back soon.
Posted at: 10:40 in /english/personal
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Mon, 06 Mar 2006
Back from Chemnitz
How it was:
- Great event!
- Superb organisation, everything went smoothly, no problems whatsoever. All our "extra-wishes" were fulfilled within minutes. Wow! Thank you, CLT Orga-Team!
- Really nice food, too. Especially the buffet on Saturday. Wow again. Thank you, too, CLT Catering-Team!
- Met lots of nice people. Many irc nicks now finally have a face.
- Brought my camera but didn't take pictures. Nobse did.
- asciijump is biiiig fun!! (But segfaults in stable.)
- Jonas is now me (or at least carries my name tag).
- This was my first Linux event without a laptop. Pain!
- My talk went well. Lots of good feedback and some good ideas for further improvement.
- Publicly humiliated myself by "solving" a (simple) problem with the demo machine through reboot. Booo!
- To my surprise there wasn't a single linux merchandise vendor. Aaaw :( Good for my finances though. I think the only thing I spent money on this weekend was a bus ticket.
- Such a lot of snow!
- Yay, Vita Cola!
- Tolimar can magically disappear within 9 secs straight.
- See you at CLT 2007
Posted at: 12:43 in /english/debian/events
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Mon, 13 Feb 2006
Back from Cambridge
For now I'd just like to let you know that I made it there and back without any problems, the workshop was great and I would like to thank everyone involved. Cheers! :)
PS: I arrived quite late or rather early this morning, I am dead tired, watching Amaya's video of her cats comfortably lolling around on a cosy blanket on a heater does *not* help! *whimper*
Posted at: 10:35 in /english/travel
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Fri, 10 Feb 2006
Off to Cambridge
I usually don't suffer from travel nerves, though this trip is so far foreshadowed by a chain of unfortunate events:
Firstly I scalded my hand with hot oil last weekend and it is now in the state of getting rid of the old burned skin, exposing the tissue underneath that is not real skin but some thin algesic replacement. Ouch!
Secondly my laptop, beloved dropkick, lost its display this week. Well, not physically, but when I booted it up on Thursday the colors where heavily distorted. I tried to fix it yesterday but at some point it just stopped working alltogether. :( Background lightening still goes on and off but nothing is displayed. I am pretty frustrated by this. Not only because I had planned to use the laptop this weekend but also because I really like it and have grown kind of attached to it. Since a professional repair would probably cost almost as much as the thing is worth and I am pretty broke at the moment I'll try to get a used display and replace it myself. (Relevant hints and advice are welcome!)
Lastly, I haven't packed yet, my belt loop is ripped and the prospect of spending long waiting periods with only a book plus pen and paper as means of distraction is not too thrilling.
Anyway, still looking forward to the weekend! (<phlox>Optimism!</phlox>) I'll let you know how it went (and what further mishaps struck me) when I return. :)
Posted at: 15:45 in /english/travel
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Fri, 03 Feb 2006
Some work on gender and FLOSS
This also coincides nicely with a mail I got at about the same time from the FLOSSPOLS Project. They are organising a workshop on gender and FLOSS in Cambridge next weekend and invited me to participate. I am very much looking forward to this! Not only because it's an interesting topic, but also because I am finally going to personally meet some very interesting women, who I've only virtually "talked" to or only read about until now.
Also, this happens at just the right time, since I have recently begun to grow a bit bored by the whole Women and FLOSS Issue and it's ever-repreating discussions. I feel that these events give me back some of the momentum I've lost over the last months. Raising the number of women in FLOSS is a complex, longsome and sometimes even tedious business and it's good to get a little push from time to time.
PS: Congrats, honey! ;-)
Posted at: 14:08 in /english/women
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Thu, 19 Jan 2006
Random stuff
Posted at: 15:13 in /english/misc
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
On laundromats Not owning a washing machine of your own does funny things to you. When I moved here, I knew that being without one I would have to cycle to the laundromat every time, carrying a huge backpack, wash my stuff, cycle back home with the wet cloths and hang them in the drying room in the basement. Compared to the hassle that it would be to get a washing machine, and considering I am only going to live here for half a year this seemed sensible. There are however a few things I did not know/consider:
- The afore mentioned half year is from September to March. Most of the time it's f***ing cold!
- A trecking backpack full of cloths is not too heavy, but a trecking backpack full of wet cloths is another matter.
- Wet cloths get awfully cold when being transported in winter and they are able to preserve that low temperature for a surprisingly long time (usually until the last sock is hung up).
- Hanging up two loads of super-freezy laundry does painful things to the tips of my fingers.
- The ability of my fingers to preserve cold temperature is in no way inferior to that of my laundry.
- The laundromat is not heated very well (maybe not at all).
- It is a very good idea, to sort your laundry before going to the laundromat. (Use backpack's separable compartments for that!) I am not overly bashfull, but there's nothing like a big funny looking guy interestedly watching you sorting through your underware
- In order to put off the afore mentioned inconveniences as long as possible I am totally willing to disregard any sense of style, fashion or non-idiocy I may have left (cloths-wise that is).
Posted at: 15:11 in /english/misc
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Web stuff I've never been much of a web stuff person, I don't like pointless
Look, I am online!web pages and never felt the urge to have one myself. Though, over time, I kinda slipped into it as well. First there was my student homepage, then the blog, and a number of other machines I have accounts/stuff on ... A few months ago I finally got fed up with this patchwork structure and decided to get everything together on one machine and under one domain. This is still work in progress, since most things are done in the evenings after work and my current occupation is one of that kind where you get home in the evening and feel like doing braindead things or crawling straight into bed. But, relocation is advancing step by step and as a first result I can now proudly present a domain of my own :) It's still hosted on someone else's machine (Thanks aba! :)) and there's not much there yet, but it's going to grow slowly ... Also, this time I tried to do it right from the start and make the pages as simple and accessible (without looking too 1992) as possible. I didn't know much about these things when I designed my student homepage and the blog, so another task on my todo list is to properly redo them and also put them there.
Posted at: 15:11 in /english/meta
permanent link - this day - comment
on this
Hardware shopping After finally setting up my old PC (Does PC still mean
personal computeror has it completely mutated into
politically correctyet?) I noticed that its mainboard was broken. (Well, actually I didn't. I thought that stuff on the capacitors was just some kind of dust or so. Alex kindly informed me that it was infact their content ... which somewhat impairs their functional capability.) The machine still booted up alright and worked without problems, but every now and then it suddenly went out without any sign of warning. Very annoying. This resulted in the machine serving as an occasional table for another few weeks. Until last weekend, when I finally went and got some new hardware for it. It now has a new mainboard (my first one with DDR RAM, welcome in the new millennium!) and a silent CPU cooler. The good: The computer is now finally usable and I cannot hear the CPU fan anymore. The bad: I now know that the fan of my PSU is just as loud, as are the hard discs ...
Thus another hardware shopping expedition is in order!
... as soon as my finances recovered from that last one ...
Posted at: 15:11 in /english/misc
permanent link - this day - comment
on this