April 2005

Multilateral Lasagne

30 April 2005

A few years ago a certain brand of lasagne noodles had a package in 12 languages, including the recipe for (wouldn’t you know it) lasagne. The French recipe was very general; there were no measurements, just make a batch of Bechamel sauce, then a batch of red meat sauce, etc. The German version was somewhat [...]

Read the full article →

Lost Passport

30 April 2005

In Actual Fact has a good lost passport story. I’d have a good one too, from a few years ago, but I didn’t know it was lost. A couple days after returning from a trip to the States, I couldn’t locate my passport. It couldn’t be that far away, I obviously had it in my [...]

Read the full article →

Impact Blog

29 April 2005

Jörg earnestly asks “What is an ‘impact blog’?” To me it’s obvious… it’s a blog that makes a big hole. Experience the impact!

Read the full article →

You Don’t Want to Need to Know

27 April 2005

You don’t really want to need to know how to recover from mysql crashes, be they the result of natural or man-made disasters. It’s good to know that you can, but it’s better to avoid the disasters in the first place. You’d rather not have to find the previous snapshot, convert the subsequent bin logs [...]

Read the full article →

accidents waiting to happen

27 April 2005

“Both the raft and the PR manager were accidents waiting to happen…”

Read the full article →

*sigh*

25 April 2005

When talking about childhood with Germans, one of the differences one discovers is that they all grew up reading Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comic books, and we didn’t. We Americans outgrew Mickey and Donald by the time we were 6, but the Germans… they kept reading, even into adulthood, and even now ask for [...]

Read the full article →

Music Charts

25 April 2005

Noticed looking at the CD charts at the music store today: Of the top 10 albums in Germany, 7 are by German artists, including 5 of the top 6. The only US album is 50 Cent at number 7. Of the top 10 albums in the US, only 4 appear in the German Top 50 [...]

Read the full article →

Methamphetamine wreckage in Montana

23 April 2005

New West has a bizarre 6 part story of prostitution and methamphetamines in rural Montana. I’ve heard of meth labs near my old home town in Minnesota, but meth is a rural phenomenon that began after I left, so the disruption and destruction that meth addiction can cause in small towns was new to me, [...]

Read the full article →

Paris Later

23 April 2005

Since Christopher will be on the North Sea for his Kindergarten Freetime this week, I could very well have arranged to attend the Les Blogs (that’s Les as in French, not Les as in lesbian) conference in Paris on Monday. But since we’ve never been to Paris, it would be somehow unfair to go to [...]

Read the full article →

Rent A German

23 April 2005

I don’t really need to Rent A German. I’ve already got one on long-term lease.

Read the full article →

airport penguins

23 April 2005

Two penguins going through airport security. (via Schneier on Security)

Read the full article →

Welcome to Squeezebox

22 April 2005

This is my latest enhancement for my home workspace… a Squeezebox wireless digital music player for mp3s and Internet radio for our existing stereo, controlled via remote or a web browser. The files stored on my NSLU2 running Unslung. The SlimServer (open-source, in Perl) is probably too hefty to run on Unslung; I’ve got it [...]

Read the full article →

Understatement

22 April 2005

In How to Start a Startup Paul Graham explains that formalities aren’t so important when starting a company, except: “A friend who started a company in Germany told me they do care about the paperwork there, and that there’s more of it. Which helps explain why there are not more startups in Germany.” (via vowe)

Read the full article →

The End

20 April 2005

My former employer Netlife is to be liquidated. Guess I can toss out my stock options now…

Read the full article →

Darth Benedict

20 April 2005

Living on the northern Protestant end of a country long divided by the 30 Years’ War, the election of the Pope, even a German Pope, is news that seems very far away. They do put on a good show and tell a good story, but as an outsider the Catholic church (without meaning to insult [...]

Read the full article →

Double Feature

19 April 2005

As fate would have it, yesterday Amango (like Netflix, only German) sent me 2 DVDs I’ve been waiting a long to see: Die Unglaublichen – The Incredibles Der Untergang – The Downfall Now, if that’s not a double feature… fun for the whole family! Pixar in the Bunker!

Read the full article →

Bloglines Down

16 April 2005

I can’t log in to my Bloglines accounts this morning… and it seems like noone else can either. Of course, if you depend on Bloglines to manage your reading, you’ll never read this. Update: As of 16:15 CET, it seems to be back.

Read the full article →

Sixty Years After Bergen-Belsen

15 April 2005

David’s Medienkritik reminded me that this is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, located about 50 km from our house. I’ve mentioned before that Bergen-Belsen is perhaps the eeriest place I’ve ever been. There are no original buildings from the camp. They were all burned, and there are no replicas. There is a [...]

Read the full article →

29560 Unread

14 April 2005

I really should check my spam folder more often than every six months…

Read the full article →

Blue Train

11 April 2005

That’s Mama, Papa and Christopher riding there in the back. I’m not sure about the 4th circle.

Read the full article →

Service with a Smile

9 April 2005

To anyone following the company, it’s old news that Wal-Mart is struggling In Germany. But a side comment is interesting. “Rivals continue to chuckle about the customer reaction when, initially, Wal-Mart offered services such as grocery bagging. It turned out that Germans didn’t want strangers handling their groceries. And when clerks followed orders to smile [...]

Read the full article →

Streetcar

9 April 2005

We were in Braunschweig yesterday as first leg of our (ill-fated) Berlin trip. Christopher was impressed by the streetcars. Click for an enlargement. (This is a negative of his drawing, since his yellow outline is very hard to see on the white paper. So call this a streetcar at night.)

Read the full article →

Berlin Postponed

9 April 2005

We have to postpone our Berlin weekend. We both have a case of stomach flu, and decided it would be best to wait until we, and the weather, were somewhat better. That means we won’t be able to meet Jörg and Gabi as we had planned. Hopefully we can arrange a meeting next time.

Read the full article →

All Pope, All The Time

7 April 2005

Just trying to cash in on the media craze… PapalScott! Update: I got tired of the design after about 5 minutes, so the screenshot will have to do. I still think the photo (from Spiegel Online) with the papal light sabre is cool, though.

Read the full article →

Bruce Springsteen in Hamburg

7 April 2005

Ringfahndung Blog: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN 5 solo concerts in Germany Hamburg, 11 June, Color Line Arena. Also Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf

Read the full article →

Practice for Freetime

6 April 2005

Tomorrow Christopher’s Kindergarten group will be staying there overnight. It’s a warm-up for their trip at the end of April, what they call Freizeit, or Freetime, when the group will spend a week at St. Peter Ording on the North Sea. That’s right, in 3 weeks Christopher will be away from home for 5 days. [...]

Read the full article →

Priority clash

6 April 2005

Asymmetrical Information: “Old Europe’s” welfare states will undermine European integration (Martin Wolf in today’s Financial Times): Hourly labour costs in the present wave of accession countries were, on average, one-seventh of the west German level in 2003… The incentive for migration then is huge, as is that for moving production in the opposite direction… However, [...]

Read the full article →

Berlin for Children

5 April 2005

We’ll be taking a quick trip to Berlin for the weekend… hopefully the good weather will hold up. We’ll get a U-Bahn pass and check out some of the tours for children.

Read the full article →

Switzerland has moved

5 April 2005

Switzerland has moved according to Microsoft

Read the full article →

Microsoft Mac OS X

5 April 2005

MacMini with Microsoft Mac OS X at Media Markt

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries