blatant nonsense

Crosswalk button hacks

2005-07-05T22:31:00.000+02:00

The "Cross Anytime" group used a abrute-force approach to find the cheats using crosswalk buttons at intersections at any time. These codes are usually used by the police to get a free road. It must have taken ages to get all these codes. Does there exist anything like this for Berlin? :)

Confederation Cup

2005-07-05T22:15:00.000+02:00

Uf...more than one month that I didn't write anything on my blog. Sorry for that, but the weather in Berlin was so fantastic that I spent most of the nights outside (Barbecue rules :). Moreover, I've been to two matches of the Confederation Cup: Brazil vs. Mexico and the semi final match Argentina vs. Mexico. This was really a good test for the world cup next year. The atmosphere in the stadium (both matches took place in Hannover) was really excellent. The only things which which have been annoying were the streakers and the security checks in front of the stadium (it took 45 minutes to get into the stadium). In the end everything went as expected: Brazil won the cup :) However, Mexico was my favorite of the cup. They won against Brazil, unlucky lost against Argentina by penalty shootout and did a great match against Germany.

The only bad news is that Congo lost against Burkina Faso. So I doubt that they will qualify, which means that I might not get any tickets for the World Cup 2006 :(

Favourite piece of British design

2005-06-04T00:52:00.000+02:00

I just read at BikeBiz.com about the "iconic design poll". You can vote for your favourite piece of British design from 1986 to 2005. At the moment the Moulton bike is on first place. The bike has been nominated by James Dyson. His justification is the following:

"Looking at his intriguing bicycles you can see that Alex Moulton questions every part of the design. His aim is clear: to make lighter, safer and more comfortable bikes whilst improving speed. Good design is about how something works, not just how it looks, which is why I like the Moulton bike so much."

I totally agree with this. The Moulton is the best designed bike I have seen so far...unfortunately it is f*cking expensive :(

The poll ends on June 29th.

Birdy modifications

2005-06-01T21:42:00.000+02:00

Two weeks ago I modified my birdy a bit. My birdy has now a Brooks Team Professional saddle and after two weeks I can say that it's really worth the money!

Moreover, I installed a bike computer. I had to make a decision whether or not to buy a wired or wireless computer. The advantage of a wireless device is of course that you have no problem with fiddling around with the cable. However, you need to change the battery of the sender quite frequently. Moreover, I was not sure if a wireless computer does really work properly on the birdy since the distance from the steering bar to the wheel is quite big (However, I read that some devices work). So I went for a wired device and the Sigma BC 1200 bike computer was my choice. The cable which ships with the device is not long enough. I had to buy an additional longer one. Of course this costs extra :(

After 1500 km I had to change the chain...actually I should have done this weeks before. The Rohloff Caliber 2 is a good tool for measuring the chain and although it is quite expensive, it is really worth the money.

And the best at the end: I joined the break people! Yes! I now have Magura HS 33 hydraulic brakes. These break are really really great and the breaking power is frightening. I always wanted to have those breaks, but since they are so expensive I was a bit afraid that they got stolen. With the birdy this is no problem. It's foldable so I can take it with me wherever I go. The installation is straight forward. Since the standard lines are not recommended by R&M and Magura, I went for the "Stahlflex". My experience with the brakes so far are good. First of all the braking power improved; the standard birdy brakes are quite noisy on bad roads (there are a lot of cobblestone streets in Berlin); and the folding behaviour of the birdy is better.
Take a look at the pictures of Detlef Beyer black birdy with Magura brakes.

Need protection?

2005-05-17T21:17:00.000+02:00

Are you afraid to walk along a dark and empty street? You don't like to carry a weapon or don't want to learn some bizarre Asian fighting technique? Well here is a possible solution for you: The fully automatic fighting hamster. Trained to kill :)

Didi Hamann bridge

2005-05-17T21:07:00.000+02:00

Damn! There is a voting to find a name for the new Wembley stadium bridge. German football fans tried to put Didi Hamanns name on the list, but unfortunately they failed. The organisers of the voting have banned him as a possible name. Sounds like censorship...

Hollywood Math

2005-05-06T23:14:00.000+02:00

Without mathematics most of the past and forthcoming blockbusters, e.g. Matrix, wouldn't be possible, since most of the special effects are done on the computer using mathematical models. In fact there is a whole mathematical community working in this field and this community is growing rapidly. However, the mathematics is not visible for the general audience since they just see the results. Thus, math is involved in an implicit way.

In some movies math is involved in a more active way in the sense that actors are using mathematical terms. But in most cases the math is used in an improper or even wrong. For most of the viewers this doesn't matter, but for an expert in the audience this is really annoying. And this is not only true for mathematics. The abuse of inaccurate scientific statements is a pain for every expert in the field. But now there is help: Hollywood Math.
A quote from the web site:

Hollywood Math and Science Film Consulting will ensure that the technical details and jargon in your script sound believable, whether they be mathematical, scientific, or medical.

So now there is no excuse for the improper use of science in Hollywood movies :-)

Worl cup tickets

2005-05-03T22:34:00.000+02:00

I had no luck in the first phase of the world cup 2006 ticket lottery. But in the second phase I managed to get a TST-6 for Congo DR. Keep your fingers crossed, that Congo DR make it through the world cup qualification round. It doesn't look too bad, but they have to win the next matches.

Go Congo DR! :-)

Ströbele's bike back

2005-04-26T20:25:00.000+02:00

Last week German MP Hans-Christian Ströbele's bycicle was stolen in front of the Bundestag, despite the presence of security cameras and police. He did not lock it. How stupid! Now people found the bike on a flea market and bought it for 20 EUR. You can find the full story here. It's fun to read it. Especially if you now Ströbele...

New Layout

2005-04-26T00:28:00.000+02:00

I just changed the layout of my blog...Any suggestions or comments?

Happy birthday Hubble!

2005-04-25T22:06:00.000+02:00

The Hubble space telescope turns 15 today! Unfortunately the future of Hubble is uncertain, but I hope they find a solution and keep this thing up in the sky. It is a really successful project and it would be a pitty, if it finishes due to a lack of money.

Thalys with WLan

2005-04-25T21:23:00.000+02:00

Heise news reports on a pilot project of getting a wireless Lan in the Thalys high speed trains on the route between Paris and Brussels. They use satellite technology and get a 2/4 Mbit/s up/down stream, which should be enough to send emails.

There is a similar pilot project for the german ICE, where UMTS technology is used. I couldn't find any information on the up/down stream data.

Let's see what happens after the testing periode. An internet connection inside the train would be great for working on the road, but so far it is open how much they are going to charge for the service. The WLan at the train stations (DB Lounges) costs 5.50 EUR per hour. I think this would be a fair price also for the WLan on the trains (if the connection is fast enough).

No world cup tickets

2005-04-22T20:03:00.000+02:00

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Like many many others I didn't get a single ticket for the football world cup 2006 in Germany...at least not in the first round. I'll certainly try again! Applications for the second round will start on May 1st 2005.

Mac OS X 10.3.9

2005-04-17T14:37:00.000+02:00

Just 14 days before Tiger is going to be available in the shops Apple released an update of the Panther version of their OS. I just installed without any problems (note: 51.3 MB so make sure you have a decent conection to the net).

The update contains a new version of Safari (Version 1.3), which is claimed to be a lot fast, but so far I didn't see any differences. The only think which was really annoying that Apple added some bookmarks to the bookmark bar (Amazon, Ebay, etc.). However, I just installed it and maybe there are some more annoying thinks.

Vi Assistant

2005-04-17T11:37:00.000+02:00

I just found this picture on the web and had a real big laugh. However, after a quick search I figured out that such a "Vi(m) Assistant" really exists. It's called Vigor (pronouced like "Igor", Dr. Frankenstein's assistant) and is available for quite a while. Take a look at the screenshots. There is also a version of Vigor for the xmms player. This is really sick. Isn't it? On the other hand it shows how powerfull the vi editor is :)

Wanted: most cycle friendly city in Germany

2005-04-17T11:07:00.000+02:00

The ADFC, BUND and the UBA are searching for the cycle friendlies city in Germany. This year you can fill out the form online. The form is available on this page and has to be send before June 30th 2005 (you can also find a pdf file there in case you want to send the form the old-fashioned way). Thanks!

Bicycle filmfestival 2005

2005-04-17T10:45:00.000+02:00

The locations and dates of the 5th bicycle fimfestival are out. New York and San Francisco already participated the past years and this year Los Angeles, London and Tokyo join the group. So unfortunately just one city in Europe, which is a pitty. I hope Berlin will participate next year!

However, the Sternfahrt, one of the largest cycle demonstration world wide, will take place on June 5th this year in Berlin. I've been to the past Sternfahrten and it was always big fun. Looking forward to see you all in Berlin in June :)

Tresor gives up

2005-04-15T17:35:00.000+02:00

There was no Loveparade last year, there will be no Loveparade this year and probably there won't be any Loveparades in the future (at least not in Berlin). It looks as if techno music is finally dying. This weekend there will be another nail to the coffin of techno: The Tresor, one of the techno clubs in Berlin, will close after 14 years. R.I.P.

Johannes-Paul-II.-Allee

2005-04-15T15:08:00.000+02:00

I was away for some days, so sorry for not keeping you up to date during the past days :)

Probably you've heard that the pope is dead. And as usual if a personality like the pope dies, some people are getting completely nuts. The CDU party for instants wants to change the name of the Karl-Marx-Allee into Johannes-Paul-II.-Allee in order to honour the pope.

Due to the nice buildings (which are under monumental protection) along the street and the historic importance, the Karl-Marx-Allee is one of prettiest and most famous avenues in Berlin. Prior the reunification the avenue was called Stalinallee. And now they would like to change the name again...

Personally I don't like the idea to change the name Karl-Marx-Allee into Johannes-Paul-II.-Allee. Since there are various bars along the avenue and since Harald Juhnke died some days ago, one should consider to change the name into Harald-Juhnke-Allee. This would fit much better :)

I hate this day

2005-04-01T23:40:00.000+02:00

Yeah it's the April 1st again and so you don't know which news you true and which ones are April fools.

One of the better April fools is the USB fondue or the iPod with OS X. Or are they real? Well, we will see tomorrow.

Birdy blue - 1st resume

2005-03-29T21:59:00.000+02:00

I bought my birdy more than six month ago and I thought it is time for a first short resume of my experiences with that bike.

The reason why I wannted a foldable bike was, that I was annoyed of getting my bike stolen and/or violated. I live in Berlin almost 4 years now and in this period I lost already two real good bikes :( A foldable bike has the advatage that you can take it with you wherever you go and consequently you can always keep an eye on it. Moreover, you can take it with you in all public transport for free and also in the ICE (with a "usual" bike you are not allowed to do it).

The first foldable bike I saw was a Brompton. I was fascinated by this type of bikes and went to my local dealer in Berlin to test various foldable bikes. Among all the bikes I tested the Birdy and the Moulton were the ones I liked most. At the end I bought the Birdy blue (Hm, I should add a picture of it), because the Birdy has the better folding mechanism (in fact the Moulton just splits into two parts...not a true foldable bike).

The Birdy is my everyday bike and so far I have taken it with me to Munich, Dresden, Hamburg, Hannover, Bremen and Cottbus. I take my birdy with me werever I go, office, restaurants, bars, etc. Beside one bar in Munich (I have forgotten the name), I have never had any problems (always used the cover for the bike). I am still very happy with the bike and can recommend it to everybody who is looking for a good foldable bike. The only things I have to mention are (i) if you cycle on muddy roads the chain gets dirty very fast and you need to clean that. I guess the the Birdy grey does not have this problem, but the grey one is much more expensive. (ii) the extras for the birdy like the cover, mudguard, carrier, etc. are very expensive. I was especially disapointed from the quanlity of the mudgaurds. For that amount of money I expected a better quality.

Summing up: I am still happy with my Birdy and enjoy it every day.

More links:
birdy.de official Birdy page of Riese & Müller.
birdy-freunde.de very good overview and various tips & tricks and a good mailing list.
faltrad-direktor.de the address for all foldable bikes in Berlin. Christoph is really helfull, he as all Birdies in his shop and of course you can try them all.

ICE ashtrays

2005-03-29T21:51:00.000+02:00

I wanted to write something about my trip by the german "hig-speed" train ICE. Especially on the annoying ashtrays in this train. However, I figured out that someone else already wrote something on this topic some time ago. Just read this and the follow ups. I cannot say it any better.

Fritz Lang's M

2005-03-28T22:31:00.000+02:00

Today I had the pleasure to watch Fritz Lang's movie "M". I must admit, that I was not aware of this film before. I knew that Lang directed movies like "Metropolis" and "The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse" and many many others, but I have never heard of his film "M" before. I got the Fritz Lang Collectors DVD box last week, but only today I found the time to watch all the content of the box. Among my top 10 movies, "M" will certainly range in the top 3. The story and the screenplay is brilliant and although it is more than 70 years old, its message is still valid. The only things I have to mention is the poor quality of the sound (I know it's old, but nowadays it should be possible to recover a better sound) and there should be more bonus stuff on the DVD. Anyhow, it's a great movie! Go and watch it!

iParty Do you?

2005-03-24T19:38:00.000+01:00

There was an article on a new party concept in the newspaper today. iParrties already exists for quite a while in the States and now they are coming to the old continent. The concept of iParty is that everybody can bring his/her music on an iPod or other portable MP3 player to the party and can be a DJ for some time. So everybody can be a DJ and play the music he has stolen from the web in front of a large audience. The first iParty in Berlin will start this weekend. If you think this is something you will enjoy, go to the "Postbahnhof am Ostbahnhof" this weekend and don't forget to take your iPod with you. The rest of the party stuff you can get at www.iParty.com :-)

I wonder when somebody comes up with the idea of a "Ringtone Party", where everybody can play her/his favourite ringtone.

VimIRC - an IRC client script for Vi

2005-03-24T00:54:00.000+01:00

Everybody knows that Vi Improved is the best editor! I went through the list of scripts on the vim.org page and found a nice script which allows you to use Vim as an IRC client. It needs the per interface enabled, so I had to recompile vim with this feature.

Clearly, such a script is complete nonsense since there are much better irc clients such as irssi available. However, its fun to use Vi as irc client :-)

BTW: Another fancy plugin for Vi is the Matrix screensaver.

iPod camera connector

2005-03-22T23:21:00.000+01:00

Finally the camera connector for the iPod Photo is available in the apple store. It allows you to put your pictures directly from a camera on the iPod. However, I think it should already a build in device since otherwise the iPod Photo is of no real use. Moreover, I think the iPod Photo is still to expensive. There are more advanced devices on the market which offer a better value for your money.

Tiger released in April

2005-03-12T22:46:00.000+01:00

There have been rumors around when Apple will release their new operating system entitled Tiger. According to slashdot the release date for Tiger is 1st April 2005 and will be available in the shops in the middle of April. However, I could not find this information on apple's web side.

A feature of Tiger I'm really looking forward to is the dashboard.

Asciimation

2005-03-12T22:38:00.000+01:00

Although I'm not a star wars fan. The ascii art star wars movie of asciimation is cult! Take a look at the web page of asciimation, or just do a "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" in your terminal.

Britney Spears

2005-03-02T20:42:00.000+01:00

Just found this funny side on the web.

A quote from the side says it all: "It is a little known fact, that Ms Spears is an expert in semiconductor physics. Not content with just singing and acting, in the following pages, she will guide you in the fundamentals of the vital laser components that have made it possible to hear her super music in a digital format."

Berlin guide

2005-02-23T22:39:00.000+01:00

If you plan a trip to Berlin, you should have a look at this funny guide of Berlin prior making your hotel reservation ;-)
I found it at fun.drno.de.

Witch - A keyboard solution for managing windows

2005-02-21T19:59:00.000+01:00

macosxhints presented an application called Witch as the "pick of the week". This is a brilliant tool and I was looking for something like this for quite a while. The Mac OS X Expose does not give you an option to define keyboard shortcuts to get back minimized windows. Witch fills this gap and gives even more options concerning keyboard handling. If you prefer the use of keyboard instead of a mouse, this is certainly an application you want.

Stanley Kubrick Exhibition

2005-02-20T22:30:00.000+01:00

Probably most of you know at least some of the great movies Kubrick directed, e.g. "Full Metal Jacket", "Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb", "2001: A Space Odyssey", and of course "Clockwork Orange" and many many more. Almost 6 years after his sudden death, his widow, Christine Kubrick, initiated an exhibition, which is currently located in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.

I went to the exhibition today and must say that is fantastic! If you have the chance to see it, you should go. The website contains all the data you need to know.

News.Individual.NET not free anymore

2005-02-16T21:20:00.000+01:00

Due to a lack of sponsors News.Individual.NET have to change their policy. From April 1st 2005 their service will not be free anymore. Old users will have to register again and have to pay 10 Euro per annum for their service. There are still some free news servers around, but I think it is just a matter of time until the last free news feed server disapear. Sad news.

Just a note: 1und1 customers can use news.online.de as news feed.

new member of the birdy family

2005-02-13T20:29:00.000+01:00

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the birdy, RM introduced a new member to the birdy family: The "jubilee birdy". Pictures and facts of the new birdy are summarized on the web page of the birdy friends.

I went to the bike.market.future and had a look at the new birdy. It looks really really cool and fast. In fact RM claim that it is the fastes birdy ever, but I do not thing this is true. Since RM will only produce 100 of the "jubilee birdy", you will barely see it on the streets and thus it will certainly be a legend just as the "birdy elox".

And so it begins....

2005-02-12T01:16:00.000+01:00

"Silence is Golden" but there may be a few of those words that are worth sharing. Projects and lists and thoughts jotted down but incomplete; they could just be useful to someone. So I'm going to post them here. Hey - I might look back and they might be useful to me at some time!