Kuro5hin has a nice article about the portuguese revolution, which sums up portugal's history from the 1920 to April 25th, 1974 quite nicely. As far as I can tell...

Finally got my satelite receiver working. The last week I was only able to see childrens television in very bad quality. I phoned to the company responsible for our antenna, and discovered that the people at Saturn sold me the wrong cable, which lead me to connecting it to the wrong output. Never trust any of the sell-bots from Media-Markt-Saturn...

Now I get 5 different home shopping channels and Viva 2, which is a music channel sending annoying music videos in a small corner of the screen, all the rest of the screen is occupied by scrolling text bars showing sms-messages slightly less intellectual than "Luv U Hunnybunny" and charts from Timbuktu to Borneo. Yesterday night I ended up watching the childrens television night loop (Bernd das Brot forever).

Holy Foreskin!

On Shift again. Jumped in for a friend...

Just been here half an hour and already bored :-) Reading Spiegel Online: Singing birds in big cities sing louder than their counterparts in the country. In the trees behind my house are some nice examples of that. One is especially annoying, as it imitates the sound of a cell phone beeping. I think this bird has a lot of fun in the parks going beep beep and all humans around start looking for their mobile...

In other news: Teacher was threatened by a student with a cookie.

Poor Darwin. Now creationism reached Europe (again, we returned to the middle ages...). Italy kicked evolution out of the curriculum in schools in the first 10 years or so.

On the other hand, evolution is popular in Portugal, so it seems. In 1974 they made one of the few (more or less) peaceful revolutions (there were not a lot of casualities, military ran around with flowers in their guns). Now there seem to be people going on that it was not really a revolution, more of an evolution.

I do not know what you want to call it else than revolution. Military marching around the city, suspending by force the old government, providing new government. The old government did not need much force to get thrown out, but nonetheless, that's what I call a revolution.

Some people also go on, that the iraq war was not really a war, because wars need at least 1000 fatalities. So it was just an armed conflict, or let's say some minor disagreement between a government and a terrorist (figure out yourself where the difference between them is...). Just hate these changing of words. If people shoot at each other, that is war. Even if there are less than 1000 deads.

Language is a great tool for hiding things. Just find a euphemism and everthing is good...

Just passed by a Taxi with an advertisement for "Kill Team - Taubenbekämpfung" (Anti-Pidgeon-Services...). Now I have the image in my mind of lots of people in complete fighting gear abseiling from office buildings going "Hut Hut Hut" and trying to shoot pigeons...

WEEKEND! Finally! Sunshine, it's warm, friends from far away coming around, what do you want more...

I went to buy some running shoes yesterday. It was amazing. Men have flewn to the moon with less technology. Entering the shop I was completely confused. The last time I bought some sport shoes it was sufficient to know your size (at that time I think it was not even distinguished between man and woman (regarding running shoes, everything else was already discovered). Must have been shortly after shoes were invented but shortly before sport industry was invented).

Now you have to know what you want to do with the shoes, if you want to do walking, power walking, nordic walking, jogging, marathon, run around the world or just pretend to be sporty (most of the shop was occupied by a department called "style"). You have to know how you run. If your feet are inclined when they touch the ground. And how far. If you are a "Normalabroller" (that's german for moving your feet normally, at least as I understood it, I learnt a lot of new words today, most of which I already forgot again...) or if you walk like a rheumatic camel.

Luckily there was somebody who could help me. We did an analysis of my running style. I had to get on these conveyor belt things you use to run indoors at fitness centers. A computer with a high speed video camera attached to it analyzed my running. My feet are only slightly inclined, so I am a "Normalabroller". Phew. Thank God. Now I am really relaxed.

Sadly all the cheap shoes were for non-"Normalabroller" (As were most of the others. Seems that being a "Normalabroller" is not normal these days...). Shoes for me started at 95 Euros and went up to nearly the price of a small car (I could not see any differences between them...) Luckily the cheapest were the ones which fist best. So now I am equipped with a pair of shoes, 4 Euros cheaper than a flight to Lisbon or Istanbul, perfectly fitting to my running style, enabling me to run a marathon, what am I saying, preparing me for Iron Man.

Went happily for jogging afterwards. A lot of people seemed to have the same idea, close to the Elbe it was really a lot of traffic in the parks. I discovered that Hamburg has a lot of steep hills but nevertheless I managed to do some 15 minutes of jogging with only short intervalls of trying to revive my legs and trying to breath again (The 15 minutes are jogging time, not counting the intervalls...). I am proud of myself. Goal until July: try to jog for half an hour without any pauses and without breaking down...

Spent nearly all the day going back and forth between the experiment and my office. Managed to tighten some screws inbetween. Another very productive day...

Yesterday went for a walk in the area where my flat is. Really nice. A lot of the Big City People ^(TM) look like people from a brit pop video or like they came through a time-hole directly from the eighties. Hoped we would already past that, but one never can be sure... I got the strange feeling like looking as the guy from provinzz. Maybe I should go looking for the stuff I wore in the eighties, it should be hidden somewhere.

Local easter tradition in northern germany: getting drunk around a lovely small fire...

Random Pictures #4 (or 5?)

Been watching the easter service live from vatican. Eurovison just cut off in the end, while it still was going on. Afterwards interview with a priest looking exactly like Uwe Seeler, the interview exactly like after a football match. Do you think the pope was handling the ball well? Did you like the first half? Was it really a penalty kick?

Sometimes I feel the urge to shoot my TV.

Moving changes perspective. It is always interesting do discover that again. I moved to Hamburg last week (that is the reason for no posting...) and some of my views changed almost instantly. Happily living in Erlangen, thinking that it is a quite lifely city, where you could get everything you need, now living in Big City, thinking that Erlangen is kind of province, small minded and possibly boring...

Maybe I turn into a kind of bohemien, living in two cities, Erlangen and Hamburg, eternally on the move, this time not being at home in one of them, living a nomadic life. But it is nice to see everything from a fresh perspective...

I thought until recently, that within our collaboration everybody is not really at war with each other. Now being not in an remote outpost but in the very center, it looks a lot tougher than before. You have to fight, you have to publish your stuff (even internally), if you don't somebody else will get the credits. You have to do politics. Working is amazingly unproductive, because of meetings you have to show up to, even if they are not of the remotest interest to you, you have to do a lot of so called social meetings, to be known and not getting the image of boring guy, who does not want to talk to his collegues. And you have to be present in your office late in the evening, not because there is work to do, but just because.

Still have to get sorted. As I do not have Internet at home in Hamburg (nor phone, I thought it would be nice to be not so reachable...), there will be less posts here. I will do my very best not to bore you to death...

Sequels we all have been waiting for...



Picture taken 1st of April, 1:15am, Erlangen...

Been to the post office today. As I am moving to Hamburg next week, I want my letters send to there...

The post office used to be, back in the good ol' days of state monopoly, a place where you meet uncommunicative buraucrats, who would not talk to you, but after some time of showing you that they are in charge, they would happily fullfil your wishes (I did not look happily, but at least you got your things done.) Now the german post is a private company, customer oriented, service happy and all is good. No it isn't. You have to wait forever. You are treated like you are absolutely dump. And you cannot get a single thing without having to listen to the litany of "Do you already know our newest service". Worse yet, if you try to stop them telling you about their new and shiny bank accounts (or whatever), just by saying "No, thanks. No interest in that.", they just won't stop. "But you have to know about our new bank account." "No, thanks, really, I have heard it twice" "So then, what are the benefits?" That was the postal-droid. Asking me like an exam. You only get your form if you can answer at least three questions right on the all new all shiny bank account.

And not stopping there... They also wanted to sell me electricity (ecological one, made of recycled electrons...), telephone services, water, so on so on. Luckily the queue behind me reached the outer doors, so they started realizing, may be it is a good idea to cut a bit short...

Finally they handed me over a brochure about things you should think about when you are moving. I read it. They must think I am a mentally retarded three year old. In big friendly letters they remind me of things like "Turn the light off when you are leaving your house to move to a new one". Thanks. Did not think about that.

Capitalism may be one of the few working systems. But please, people are not as stupid as companies might think they are. There is no need to treat people like mentally retarted three year olds. Not even in the name of customer satisfaction. I am not satisfied! If it wouldn't be the monopolist for letters, I would not even be a customer anymore.

If I go to some place saying "I want that thing" I just want that thing. No added value, no other product. If I want to be informed about new products I go there saying "Please inform me about your new product". See the small difference in wording? Yes? Well, then there is hope.

Bloody Friends. Just wanted to drop by a party of a friend for a short time. Ended up leaving at three in the morning as one of the last guests... It is really bad if you know a lot of interesting people ;-)

From the manual of my digital camera:
Section "How to prevent casualities and deadly injuries": Do not take pictures in a moving car using a flash.

It does not say: do not take pictures while driving...

Catching the last train home. You are nearly alone, just a few other lost souls are on the train. You feel somehow related to them. People on the night train are linked by strange ties, everybody is going home, arriving when all your beloved ones are asleep, your friends are at home since hours. You know, when you leave the warm and illuminated train you are in the dark, you have to walk home or take a lonely cab with a sleepy driver. The town sleeps.

Sometimes you talk to your train companions. Some of them live a boring live as you, some are interesting. Sometimes you make friends.

Sometimes nobody is there to talk, you have read your book already twice, you stare out of the window into the dark. Sometimes lights of sleeping villages hush by the window. Sometimes you pass a train in the opposite direction. You wake up by the sudden rush it makes and realise you have been dreaming along. You enter in that strange state between sleeping and being awake...

Night trains are places where worlds are created. Where Theories dawn. Where Philosophy sneaks into your mind. Where strange thoughts enter your head and sit there until the next mornig, when you wake up and realise everything just was a dream.

BUY!

Happy World Consumer's Day!

Friends of mine try to find the algorithm of the world. I just try to find why gherkins glow when you apply a voltage on them: