From the monthly archives:

January 2005

No Klum

31 January 2005

My wife has the chance to meet supermodel Heidi Klum, but she’s turning it down. It’s not just that she doesn’t think she is an appropriate spokesperson for her business or that she seems to be “just as blond as she looks”. It’s mostly because her male colleagues can’t think straight anymore because their tongues [...]

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Plagerism

30 January 2005

This can’t be a coincidence. First ITW publishes the healing hands of Siemens the day after I already did, then Nico plays plays bet-and-win with Hoyzer the day after I already did.

Come on guys. Isn’t it enough that we Americans invented both the internet and the weblog? Do you really have to steal our weblog [...]

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I Fear No Evil

30 January 2005

I could ask today what operation is more dangerous, guarding a polling place for the Iraqi election, or supervising a carload of 5-year-olds for Christopher’s birthday party. But such a question would be crude, rude and politcally totally incorrect.

I’m not wearing any body armour, I like living on the edge.

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Medienkritik Goes Deutsch

30 January 2005

Interesting… David and RayD, the folks behind Davids Medienkritik, are planning a new German-language blog, and thay hope to attract the attention of the German public with mainstream advertising. Blogging, politics, mainstream press, advertising? I just happen to know that Nico Lumma is expert for all of those, and he just happens to be my [...]

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Bet & Win

29 January 2005

Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t it a bit funny (as in strange) that most of the German online stories about the current Bundesliga match fixing scandal feature a banner ad for online sports betting (Bild, SpOn, Kicker, Sport1)?

It’s also funny that the referee Hoyzer hat a thing about Hamburg; 3 of the 5 supposedly [...]

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Use Photoshop

28 January 2005

So, you are about to take over a multinational company, but you’re a little embarassed by the big Rolex you’re wearing in your official press photo, especially considering you’ll be announcing over 1000 layoffs. What do you do? Use Photoshop!

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Hi Mom

28 January 2005

My mother sent me a mail wondering why I haven’t posted here in a few days. Am I sick? Busy? No, Mom, everything’s OK. We’re all just a little pre-occupied, that’s all. I’ll call you this weekend.

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Quote Unquote

22 January 2005

German For Beginners on the Bild Zeitung: “Bild is the most popular newspaper in Germany, it’s kind of right-wing, a bit down-market and features semi-naked females – it would be instantly recognisable to Britons as ‘The Sun with Umlauts’… The newspaper is, and I want to be kind here, absolute and utter crap.”

Except of course [...]

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Busted!

20 January 2005

The other shoe has finally dropped. My present employer, the Netlife AG, today declared bankruptcy. The unknown investor who was to save the company in reduced form apparently backed out.

Salaries have been paid out in full through December, so noone is waiting on back pay. We’ll have to apply to the Arbeitsamt for Insolvenzgeld to [...]

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Naked Advertising

19 January 2005

In the States, women who posed for Playboy with their employer’s logo would be fired. In Germany, the employer (the electronics retailer Media Markt) cooperates with Playboy and advertises it, which gives a whole new meaning to “not safe for work”. (via ameisendorf.de)

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I Will Follow

19 January 2005

So I too am helping Google to Preventing Comment Spam by jumping on the rel=”nofollow” bandwagon. Not that’s going to prevent much of anything. If comment spam is anything like email spam, we’re going to see four waves, each exponentially bigger than the one before: the originators, the copy-cats, the script-kiddies and then the robots. [...]

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After A Fashion

19 January 2005

Strangely enough, I haven’t seen any German blogs mention the murder of Munich “fashion guru” Rudolph Moshammer, only expat bloggers, and all located in the free state of Bavaria, where Moshammer was quite a local celebrity.

Then again, up north we have to put up with Dieter Bohlen, so I don’t think we have it any [...]

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Converting Manila to Movable Type

18 January 2005

Jason Levine has now published his script for converting Manila to Movable Type (which can then be converted to anything else). He helped Susan convert 6 months ago (when I couldn’t), and I’m glad his recipe is now available for everyone.

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Linux Mini

18 January 2005

My newest toy is a Linksys NSLU2, a little plastic box (no bigger than my hand) with an ethernet port and 2 USB ports. It’s designed to be an instant file server… just plug in an USB hard disk and it works. But the real fun is that it runs Linux; you can swap [...]

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Minnesota Town Hits 54 Below Zero

17 January 2005

Minnesota Town Hits 54 Below Zero (-48°C) I guess winter has finally arrived back home, eh?

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Sansibar

16 January 2005

We took a weekend trip to Sylt, and spent this morning on Sansibar Beach. Temperature 5°C, but with the wind it felt like -10°C.

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Fussball-Ventilatoren

14 January 2005

German For Beginners: Fussball-Ventilatoren

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Application Rejected

13 January 2005

I haven’t posted in a while about our local anti-wind generator group, but we just got a notice in the Hamburger Abendblatt. Rough translation: the county has now twice denied a building permit for the generators. If the developers now wish to pursue the project further, they would have to go to court. We’re 90% [...]

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Congratulations!

12 January 2005

Congratulations to Dave, newly employed expat blogger in Hamburg!

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No Joy in Macville

11 January 2005

code: theWebSocket: There is no joy in Macville Well, I can see that the Apple old-timers can’t be real happy that Apple is turning into a electronic Abercrombie & Fitch outfitter for the iPod generation. On the other hand, can’t you see yourself with a miniMac or three on your desk?

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W’s iPod Playlist:

11 January 2005

Wonkette: W’s iPod Playlist Rock the Casbah!

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My first usenet post

11 January 2005

My first Usenet post? 7 Aug 1994 in comp.os.linux.misc: “I visited the US last month, and though I didn’t look very hard, I was disappointed to see nothing about Linux in any of the bookstores I visited.” (Prompted by Matthew’s first Usenet post.)

Update: Ooops, just found an older one: 12 May 1994 in comp.text.tex: “Is there [...]

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Christopher’s Cooking Show

10 January 2005

A photo series.

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The Other Side

10 January 2005

Christopher and Papa yesterday at the zoo (courtesy of Nico). Christopher is the tough guy hiding his eyes. Papa is the one in the dorky cap.

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Pay Per Read

10 January 2005

So I read that Adam Kalsey is sending SMS by e-mail for a project, and I wonder… well, first why doesn’t Adam just get a GSM modem… but then, why do the carriers allow that, don’t they miss out on the revenue? But of course, this is America, where the cell phone business is backwards [...]

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Hagenbecks

9 January 2005

Christopher and I met Nico, Sibylle and Frederike for a cool and windy afternoon at Hagenbecks Tierpark, Hamburg’s zoo. It looks like Nico and I nearly simultaneously photographed each other.

Nico and Frederike, and Sibylle’s back.

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The Sitzpinkler Phenomenon

9 January 2005

Instapundit: The Sitzpinkler Phenomenon (first mentioned here) may explain why Americans don’t take Germany or German politics very seriously, since the main thing they remember about Germany is the strange toilet. Then again, didn’t these Americans wonder what the toilet-bowl shaped brush next to the toilet was for?

And as for Sitzpinkeln itself, if you’re man [...]

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Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyl

9 January 2005

Reality TV: “Let us trim our hair in accordance with Socialist lifestyle” in North Korean television (via Wortfeld)

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Haircut

8 January 2005

Cool doo, dude! (He just won a game at wdrmaus.de)

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New Media-orites

6 January 2005

The new IT Department at New Media Management. And, as Thorsten points out, most of us have weblogs.

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