From the monthly archives:

September 2004

The Great Debate

30 September 2004

No, I won’t be staying up to watch The Great Debate at 3 am German time. I’m totally unenthused by Kerry (of the 4 main Democratic candidates, I think he was about 4th best), but I already know what I think of Bush. My mind is made up, so the debate won’t influence me one [...]

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Windows Versus the World

30 September 2004

Daring Fireball: “there’s very little doubt in my mind now that ‘desktop Linux’ market share is going to surge past the Macintosh into second place…. (Not that) this (is) bad news for Apple… I think the market for desktop Linux – both in homes and corporations – is very different than the market Apple is [...]

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The Catch

30 September 2004

50 years ago: The Catch by Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series

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Tony Blair Does Monty Python

29 September 2004

Winds of Change.NET: Tony Blair Does Monty Python at the Labour Party conference: “And the daftest thing said about New Labour is not the usual ‘What have the Romans ever done for us?’…”

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Any Questions?

29 September 2004

I haven’t posted about my job in a while. Let’s see, my laid-off colleagues are now gone, those of us who remain are being absorbed into a new department, our responsibilities are being cut down to a bare minimum, the majority of the employees agreed to a voluntary pay cut (I didn’t), the business manager [...]

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Seeing Stars

29 September 2004

Interestingly, my post on Stars generated a number of mails from my non-virtual community, er, I mean from friends and relatives, with suggestions on where to find star stickers (with Christmas decorations) and wondering if I was really serious about reforming German education with sticky bits of glossy paper.

So to clarify, the post was [...]

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Showing Up

28 September 2004

Bag and Baggage: “I honestly can’t imagine what would prevent a lawyer from showing up for his or her oral argument before the California Supreme Court. If you’re going to do it though, try picking anything but a legal malpractice case…”

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Stars

27 September 2004

I think I have discovered a reason for the poor showing of Germany in recent international studies of education systems.

We’re trying to encourage Christopher to, ah, keep his bed dry at night, with only partial success thus far. Last week I had the idea to reward him with a gold star on his calendar for [...]

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Mandrakesoft Wins One Million Euros Contract

27 September 2004

LWN: Mandrakesoft Wins One Million Euros Contract “Mandrakesoft has won a 1 million euros three-year contract to help create a highly secure Linux based solution for the French Ministry of Defense. Part of a five member consortium, the project will take a Linux based solution to CC-EAL5 (Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 5).”

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Spelling mistakes

27 September 2004

Crooked Timber: Cat Stevens denied entry because of spelling mistake Just because you give the government all your data doesn’t make the government smart enough to know how to use it.

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Vowe’s Law

27 September 2004

vowe: “Bluetooth may look interesting but a plain old cable is always better. And you have to hook up everything anyway since all of these devices need power. How often are they fully charged and will operate longer than you need them? Not very likely, according to Murphy’s Law.”

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Tuna Casserole

27 September 2004

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook “Tuna Casserole. Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish. Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.” (Via Burningbird.)

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Wouldn’t It Be Nice

26 September 2004

I’m feeling hopeful. The random lyrics are now Wouldn’t It Be Nice from Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. And Brian Wilson is releasing SMiLE this week.

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Kerry is toast

25 September 2004

When neither side deserves to win, the advantage goes to the incumbent. And with that out of the way, we can ignore 99% of the blather to come for the next 6 weeks.

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Penguin Suit

25 September 2004

I spent the morning renting a tuxedo, something I do every 10 years or so. No, noone I know is getting married. Mama’s firm sponsors a charity which is having a benefit gala in Berlin next weekend, and her boss has made it clear that it would be very good if she were to attend. [...]

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Chicago Boyz

25 September 2004

Chicago Boyz: Why you should vote even when all the choices suck “Staying home just leads them to think that you don’t care and won’t resist when your money is taken and used for the benefit of voters.”

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Eric Schrock’s Weblog

23 September 2004

Why Solaris and Linux can’t be unified (Via Hack the Planet)

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MarsEdit

22 September 2004

Ranchero Software: MarsEdit 1.0 Beta. Weblog editor for OS X from Brent Simmons. Freaky name. Funky software. Free if you’ve bought NetNewsWire.

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Corn on the Cob

21 September 2004

Our German-American meal on Sunday was Westphalian ham, boiled potatoes and corn on the cob.

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Twins Clinch AL Central

21 September 2004

Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Twins 8, White Sox 2: Twins Clinch AL Central

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Democracy Rules

20 September 2004

The voters are always right. If the voters make a bad choice or no choice at all because all the “good” choices suck, don’t blame the voters. See Rule Nr. 1.

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Brown Nosing

19 September 2004

State elections today in Brandenburg and Sachsen, and the media at home and abroad is bemoaning that the German far right makes poll gains. While the results of the far-right (9% in Sachsen, 6% in Brandenburg) make nice headlines, they miss the point. The real story is the failure of both main parties to maintain [...]

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Playboy Mirror

19 September 2004

Via Photo Matt: Open Source projects like Apache and FreeBSD are mirrored by Playboy Enterprises. Yes, that Playboy.

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Closed For Ever?

19 September 2004

Is MetaFilter permanently closed to new users? I’ve been trying off and on for several months to sign up, and keep getting told that signups are closed.

I was reminded of this when I saw Karl’s post on the death of Johnny Ramone.

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End of Ladenschluss As We Know It

19 September 2004

Round the clock shopping in Germany? Bild am Sonntag is reporting that a bill to be introduced in the Bundesrat would transfer control of shop hours from the federal government to the states . Such a bill almost certainly pass the Bundestag as well, since both major parties support it. Ten of the 16 German [...]

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Back In Germany

18 September 2004

We’ve returned from our getaway on Tegernsee, which seems to be the Munich equivalent of the Alster, with the same high real estate prices, except that it’s outside the city, not right in it. Very poor traffic planning, there were always traffic jams. Lots of private clinics though. It must be the dream of every [...]

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The Weekend Is Now

16 September 2004

We’re all three off for a weekend trip to Tegernsee near Munich, combining Mama’s business with our pleasure. She has a day-long physical exam, Christopher and I will be checking out the lake and the cable-car lifts.

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Cost of Life

16 September 2004

Just to put the current German debates on health care and education in perspective, Seth reports how tuition at public colleges in Iowa is up 71% in five years. He also points to Tom and Dori, who needed individual health insurance after having lost their coverage. They found a Health Savings Account plan, a [...]

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Kerry on Bush

16 September 2004

Mark A. R. Kleiman: Kerry on Bush “George Bush is proud of the fact that not even failure can cause him to change his mind.”

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Help Beslan children

15 September 2004

As schools reopened today in Beslan after the massacre two weeks ago, Thomas Nephew mentions a couple ways to help children in Beslan.

www.moscowhelp.org, a group originally formed to help victims of the Moscow theatre attack, is attempting to raise $10 million for Beslan. OxBlog forwards an appeal for specific medical equipment that is needed.

Here in Germany, [...]

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