So I’ve spent waiting for wind on the island of Djerba, Tunisia, for almost one week to no avail. (With one exception yesterday, that is, when I finally got the opportunity to go kite-surfing. For about 30 mins.) All forecasts for today looked equally bleak: around 5 knots in the early morning, afterwards nothing for …
Author Archives: michael
Postcard from Sri Lanka [en]
Never been a big fan of paper postcards, let alone Facebook postings. Hence, I’m going to dump random travel impressions here instead. Alongside some generic pics. And shout-outs to all my friends! Here goes… Firstly, getting around can get exciting in itself in Sri Lanka. The way of right always belongs to the vehicle with …
Esotericism is … [en]
… to belief that A/T/C/G fundamentally differs from 0/1.
Esoterik ist … [de]
… wenn man glaubt, A/T/C/G sei etwas fundamental anderes als 0/1.
.tax me! [de]
Wer hätte gedacht, dass in der Finanzverwaltung jemand mit einem Fünkchen Witz sitzt? Ich habe mich gerade für Elster-Online registriert, und habe mich doch einigermaßen über die Datei-Endungen gefreut, die sie dort durchgehend in Ihren URL-Pfaden verwenden. Hier z.B.: https://www.elsteronline.de/eportal/eop/auth/Registrierung.tax Und, dass die Leute dort überhaupt genug Englisch beherrschen? Das ist schon mal einen Oettinger …
Turbo!!! [en]
Here’s some footage of our recent kite-trip to the Netherlands: The extra Step (electrical motion!) from David Kullack on Vimeo. … well, all the action shots feature Tobi or Ranja – I guess I still need to practice a lot;)
Meetings — who doesn’t love them? [en]
… and I do think it’s particularly tough for engineers: I’m lucky enough to work at a company, where most folks are not complete morons. It’s sometimes slightly worse with our business partners though. Anyhow, I can feel for that guy. Stumbled upon through a fb-post by DerKalle.
Allvais wis ze Görmaans: Edward Snowden Edition [en]
So the NDR (a branch of Germany’s public broadcasting service ARD) got to interview Edward Snowden — exclusive stuff apparently. And whom do they send to talk to him? Some nitwit called Hubert Seipel, whose English sounds like a combination of the Simpsons’ Rainier Wolfcastle and Bond-villain Maximilian Largo. I don’t know much about that …
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Savage [en]
I’m more and more becoming a fan of Dan Savage. He’s one of these guys, who constantly manage to point out the nuisance of religion, without being a total dick about it. That may be, because instead of just weighing in on abstract, philosophical questions, he actually does something good for society. He’s an LGBT …
Strč prst skrz krk [de]
Beim neuen Lesekompetenztest für Erwachsene der Titanic scheinen Tschechen ja eindeutig im Vorteil zu sein. Trotzdem würde man der OECD gerne auch auf Deutsch sagen: “Steck dir den Finger durch den Hals”, und was auch immer “grmpf” bedeutet.
On Gay Horses [en]
The following has been said by Rowan Atkinson over a year ago. It is concerned with specific piece of legislation over in Britain, but its approach to freedom of speech is a far more general one: Just in case anyone wonders about the piece from Not the Nine O’Clock News that is mentioned: Constable Savage …
Here comes Gentrification [en]
Just stumbled upon an old NY-Times article about good old Glockenbachviertel in Munich. The article is from 2006, and I must say that the foreign autor grasped the essence of this quarter quite well. Of course, things have changed since back then. Cool places have moved away (X-cess) or even shut down completely (KuK). Others, …
OpenSSL CLI-Cheat-Sheet [en]
The OpenSSL library is utilized by a wide range of other open-source projects, like web-servers, mail-servers, VPN-servers, etc. When dealing with such software and SSL, it often proves useful to be familiar with the openssl command-line tools. Of course, OpenSSL does have great man-pages, and a quick web-search reveals plenty of usage examples. However, OpenSSL …
Tobi’s Season-Edit [en]
Tobi was mentioned here before, and now he’s just published his season-edit for 2012: Check it out! You’ll be amazed how many sports he’s skilled at! Other folks don’t even have that kind of action on their X-Box. Of course Tobi’s been focusing on skiing for a long time. So check out that part (roughly …
Ubuntu Full-Disk-Encryption – A Field Report [en]
Since my old notebook computer recently gave up on me, I had to install a new one from scratch. I finally decided to give Ubuntu a go, after I had been using Debian (testing) for almost a decade. I must say that I’m really impressed with Ubuntu’s lean installation process, which handles diverse aspects like …
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29C3 Talk: Certificate Authority Collapse [en]
Just watching axelarnbak‘s 29C3 talk on Certificate Authority Collapse, which covers structural flaws in SSL. I’ve reported on the mess with SSL before, and you may notice related complications (see CAcert) while browsing this page. After a good summary, the talk mainly focuses on structural problems and regulatory solution approaches. But apparently there are other …
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Flashback: Home, To Where The Powder Is [en]
This is a flashback post, that is, it refers to a long-passed event, or contains content that was originally published through a different channel. In this case it’s based on an e-mail I sent to a bunch of friends on 2008-06-25 from my trip to New Zealand. Merry Christmas Everyone! Just a quick update this …
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Flashback: Important Message from the New Zealand Department Of Spam!!! [en]
This is a flashback post, that is, it refers to a long-passed event, or contains content that was originally published through a different channel. In this case it’s based on an e-mail I sent to a bunch of friends on 2008-04-24 from my trip to New Zealand. Kia Ora! OK, OK. I understand that some …
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Flashback: New Zealand News [en]
This is a flashback post, that is, it refers to a long-passed event, or contains content that was originally published through a different channel. In this case it’s based on an e-mail I sent to a bunch of friends on 2008-03-08 from my trip to New Zealand. Hi there! Once again, I’ve been too lazy …
Flashback: Tales from Middle-Earth [en]
This is a flashback post, that is, it refers to a long-passed event, or contains content that was originally published through a different channel. In this case it’s based on an e-mail I sent to a bunch of friends on 2007-12-02. Hey girls, hey boys! Time sure passes by! Last time I wrote, I was …