Monthly Archive for February, 2005

2005 week 8

Published
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on February 28, 2005
in Blogging, Personal and g-blog
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Every day of the last week was nearly like the other. I got up between 0700 and 0800 and eata delicious portion of oatmeal gruel while reading my webcomic. After that I allowed myself half an hour of WoW. Then I drove to my workingplace where I did a bunch of more or less sensible things which where paused with lunch and one or two teas with my soon to be colleagues. I left campus between 1800 and 1900, had some dinner and played Wow until midnight. What you can read in the following paragraphs are the exceptions to this scheme.

[Monday]
At this point midBro had my computer for a whole week because his notebooks display was broken. I offered him my machine as a replacement while his is being repaired but he managed to sent in the his machine a week after he got my computer. When I noticed this I was annoyed and told him that I will get my computer back after 2 more weeks no matter if his laptop is repaired by then or not. Sunday he called me to complain about the modem which always gave a hardware error whenever he tried to connect to the internet.

So this morning I came to the rescue. I was lucky because I could find the source of the error very fast when I noticed that he turned the modem on, when the computer was already running. I explained to him, that this is not the way to do it. He tried and it worked. Very well…

Swimming with Lili was very good that day. We managed to swim for 35 minutes straight in a quite reasonable speed. While it is a fact that still much is to be done I also noticed that my endurance is better than I hoped. When dry again we tried the vegetarian fast food restaurant midBros significant other recommended to me which was quite yummy.

Lili had a new haircut which I find rather disturbing and non-fitting. But after all that’s always the case if someone looses about two feet of hair. I have to see if it will look better to me when I got used to it.

Griesgrimm got to know a dwarf named Addrasil which helped him to complete the quest for some troll heads and showed him the way to Loch Modan.

[Tuesday]
First I just wanted the prof to sign my “Antrag auf Eröffnung des Diplomverfahrens” but as I realized, that he had time and was in a talkative mood I snapped at the chance and asked him what he thought of the questions I prepared for my interview which I want to do with people who work for german internet mass media. It was very interesting and while talking he gave me some interesting insights and the address of a valuable contact. I even asked him the thing which bothered me most and now feel much more comfortable when talking to him. Yay!

[Wednesday]
We read “I’m only the driver” with the audio play group again. I always wonder how multitasking some people can be. On of our group managed to code java while reading the script. We still need a occasion where we can perform the piece. So if you no a good place and/or time where an audio play is needed: Let us know!

I went to the mage where I had my measures taken for the role I’m playing at the “prize of power 2″. I will be a – ha – I’m not telling because you might be one of the people who must not know aka players.

[Thursday]
46halbe and I attended a “Republican Dinner” about the topic of internal security. I hoped to get some information that I didn’t already know which unluckily wasn’t the case – except for the story, that a civil airplane was nearly shot down in january because it’s radio hadn’t worked. Also some of the people believe in some political-media-mind-control-conglomerat which controls all our minds. The case seemed really lost when one women wouldn’t even have explained to her how emails can be encrypted, cause – like she said – the goven’ment knows it all. After the dinner another women from the Humanitarion Union tried to recruit me as a member. 46halbe was spared cause she left earlier and also had the benefit of already being engaged for another organization. Well, sometimes putting your keys on the table can become a political statement. =)

[Friday]
I nearly finished the presentation for LSR and met with the guy for whom it’s for. He was quite pleased with my work and promised even more valuable contacts for my interview. After that I went to Sherpa where we played WoW until 0400 the next morning. Since he had to fix MLs computer first and since we couldn’t really agree what to do we didn’t get as far as I had hoped we would. Both of them were astonished that I brought my own salad and some sweets and told me that they now felt as bad hosts. I had to explain to them that I rather bring my food when gaming, because I when hunger strikes I eat like a troll and I often feel guilty when eating to much.

[Saturday]
I didn’t sleep very good because the night before I clearly had played to long. Went to Hamburg where I had a very nice evening with Fadi and Lubelia. We had some food, some whine, some fun and even got some work done. (To many somes but then it rhymed. Great isn’t it?) When the pulk!!! will be history I’ll surely miss those evenings.

[Sunday]
GM-meeting without Orlit because he had two work. We where quite productive but I can’t tell to much because there might be – well you know – players. After we were finished I showed Fadi WoW and we played for two hours. I wonder if he’ll get hooked up. On the way back I wrote this so after two rather untimely post you get this review right on time. Right now I realize, that I might not be able to make it before midnight. Damn!

I managed to post the paceholder 2 minutes to midnight. ^^

Edited on Feb 28th 2005, 09:36 by jeck

Now that’s funny…

Published
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on February 22, 2005
in On The Net and g-blog
. 3 Comments

Ich hab gerade mal nach “Massenmedien Interaktion” gegoogelt. Ratet, was an erster Stelle stand…

Sehr hilfreich!

2005 week 7

Published
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on February 21, 2005
in Blogging and g-blog
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Monday
Went to the doc to get an attest which would allow me to cancel my Karate contract. He only gave me a paper which says that I’m not allowed to do fighting sports until the end of februar. Also this might not be good enough for a cancellation, I’ll try anyways.

Swimming.

Tuesday
Nothing special happened. At least not that I can remember. Maybe I should blog these reviews earlier. That way there would be more content and less foggy stuff.

Wednesday
At the audio play group we read the play with no story again. Everyone keeps complimenting me that I read the role of the cynical asshole very naturally. I also noticed that I’d like to direct the next play.

Thursday
My brother finally gave in and bought WoW. I collapsed earlier when I said I’ll get the game when he does. Started playing the undead mage Serpentine on “Die silberne Hand” and the gnomen rogue Griesgrimm on “Gilneas”.

Also a long, unexpected but welcome chat took place.

Friday
I reintroduced Sp’s Vampire:TM charakter that night. He couldn’t even remember the most basic things so we practically had to reinvent his story. Had I told him he played a pink bunny he would have had to believe cause clearly he lost his marbles anything that was said about Li before.

Some WoW and the party at Tiramisu’s.

Edited on Feb 22nd 2005, 14:15 by jeck

Just in case…

Published
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on February 19, 2005
in Blogging and g-blog
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…anyone’s still interested: I finally managed to write 2005 week 6 .

Neues aus der Mensa…

Published
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on February 18, 2005
in Food, Humor and g-blog
. 1 Comment

Neulich war das vegetarische Essen mal wieder alle und ich habe endlich verstanden, warum jml immer “komplexe Kohlenhydrate aufnehmen” sagt, wenn er davon spricht, essen zu gehen.

Einen Tag später waren laut Speisekarte eigentlich zwei vegetarische Essen angekündigt, aber die waren natürlich wieder alle, als wir zur Halbzeit ankamen. Das Foto von Nudeln mit zerkochten Möhren und Erbsen erspare ich dem geneigten publikum an dieser Stelle.

Die wirklich spannende Frage ist: Was ist der kleine blaue pöppel, der auf dem Komplott liegt? Wir wissen es nicht, aber wenn einer der Leser einen Verdacht hat, möge er uns benachrichtigen. Zur besseren Untersuchung hat der Count noch eine photographische Aufnahme gefertigt.

Das Ding war natürlich nicht so schön auf meinem Zuckerschock drapiert. Ich habe drauf gebissen, als ich lustlos den Gemüsenudelpampf mampfte.

Guten Appetit wünscht: Jeck

So true…

Published
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on February 17, 2005
in Comics, Love and g-blog
. 0 Comments

“Ninja live by code of honor.
Magical girl live by code of love.
This lead to many desaster and much destruction of urban area.
Honor much safer.”

Junpei to Largo on todays Megatokyo.

pimp my own page

Published
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on February 16, 2005
in Political, School, Society and g-blog
. 0 Comments

Yay! The paper “Why not bomb them today? – Das politische Wirken John von Neumanns” 46halbe and I wrote was linked by wreck tide. It’s good to know that other people find our stuff interesting.

In related news: I mirrored the site 46halbe made. A pdf will be available soon.

Na großartig…

Published
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on February 16, 2005
in Computers, Security, Technology and g-blog
. 1 Comment

“SHA-1 has been broken. Not a reduced-round version. Not a simplified version. The real thing. [...] It pretty much puts a bullet into SHA-1 as a hash function for digital signatures (although it doesn’t affect applications such as HMAC where collisions aren’t important).”

[Schneier on Security via /. ]

Does anyone now if RIpEMD160 is secure?
Edit: I asked that question cause my GnupG has three hash-functions and this is the only one not compromised. Of course wikipedia knows it all:

“It is an improved version of RIpEMD, which in turn was based upon the design principles used in MD4, and is similar in both strength and performance to the more popular SHA-1.”

However: “RIpEMD-160 was designed in the open academic community, in contrast to the NSA-designed algorithm, SHA-1. On the other hand, RIpEMD-160 is a less popular and correspondingly less well-studied design.”

Edit2: Hmm. I’m not really sure how to use RIpEMD-160 with Enigmail end if other OSes are capable to work with that. I’ll keep you posted.

[source]

I think there should be a [security] category.
Edit2: Changed category [coding] to [security] cause Gossip heeded my request. Thx!

Edit3: For all Enigmail-users:
“GnupG hash algorithm (currently only 1 supported!)
user_pref(“extensions.enigmail.mimeHashAlgorithm”,1) ;

UI: Enigmail > preferences > pGp/MIME; Hash algorithm
Default set to SHA1.
MD5 and RIpEMD160 are available for selection but will not work currently“

[Source]

Also heise.de says, that this is not practicable usable. Also the results one would get are far from resembling a systematic manipulation.

Edit4: All is well, at least for know. Arccording to another article at heise.de even a cluster of specialized overclocked machines would compute for “some” years before finding a collision (two texts which would have the same hash). A counterfeit of a real signature would require a ‘preimage’-attack which would take even longer.

I’ll close this post with Bruce Schneiers conclusion: “For the average Internet user, this news is not a cause for panic. No one is going to be breaking digital signatures or reading encrypted messages anytime soon. The electronic world is no less secure after these announcements than it was before. [...] Jon Callas, pGp’s CTO, put it best: “It’s time to walk, but not run, to the fire exits. You don’t see smoke, but the fire alarms have gone off.” [...] The Chinese cryptographers deserve a lot of credit for their work, and we need to get to work replacing SHA.”

Edited on Feb 21st 2005, 13:12 by jeck

casual display of power

Published
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on February 16, 2005
in Personal, Ramblings, School and g-blog
. 3 Comments

Today was the last lecture of ‘history of computing’. And again the prof gave an example of his vast knowledge: In one sentence he made a connection between GNU/Linux, anarchy/communism and the Spanish civil war. And it even makes sense…

In the supermarket I had a flashing of precognitive perception. While emptying my shopping cart I suddenly knew that when I’m finished there’ll be a man who would want to get my cart without realising that he has to pass the entrance before getting one. Well, what should I say. As I was finished packing, there was a man who…

Edited on Feb 16th 2005, 06:33 by jeck

2005 week 6

Published
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on February 14, 2005
in Blogging, Personal and g-blog
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Monday
Monday saw the end of the european final beta of WoW. While I was virtuously sitting at my workplace – not playing to the bitter end – I couldn’t refrain from watching the various forums. What I saw there reminded me of press coverage of war (somebody has a good translation for ‘Kriegsberichtserstattung’?). Every minute there were new pix of the burning legion of halfnaked chars dancing into armageddon. I bet CNN hadn’t as much material on the War in Iraq as the WoW-freaks posted that day about a virtual battle.

As I reported earlier I stopped doing the Karate thing. Since I needed some kind of replacement I met with Lili for a little swimming exercise. But before we could practice I had to get new trunks. So we went to Karstadt where I selected a simple thing which was approximately as green as my old one. Then I saw the price. 30 Euros. I was instantly wondering if there wasn’t something more reasonably priced. After all I only wanted to go swimming not catwalking. Soon enough I found trunks that looked nearly the same – they where red/blue but had the same cut – but was only 3 Euro. That left me wondering about the complex and probably wonderful world of bathing suit economics.

Tuesday
I agreed to do a presentation for a guy a now from work. He has a ambitious and scurrile programme: He has founded a association that wants to recover some airplanes which got lost in WWII and now are beneath 100 meters of ice. This evening they had a meetint which I also was invited to. As I was about to show them the first draft of the presentation (made with openoffice), I realised that these slides meant two totally different things. For me it was some clicking and some reading to find out how to scroll a text. For the other people [well except for the webdesigner maybe :) ] it was colorful and fullscreen. probably I wasn’t doing them a favor cause making a presentation is boring clickwork but because they wouldn’t know how to do it. I often forget that there are people who don’t know the things I do.

Wednesday
Had a meeting at the 2nd Force. Attendants were all workers, on vice-boss and one boss. I will not rant about the meeting here cause this might – through murphys law – make me another unemployed blogger. Most of the people who have seen me the days after this have witnessed my frustration. Thanks for your patience. The idea of blogging about this made me think about a second, closed blog – again.

waves to the mindreaderwriter.

Thursday
planning at the 2nd force was pretty much business as usual. Also we implemented one of our ideas which turned out better than we thought. After that I signed my contact at iBuG – oh joy! If only the bureaucracy hadn’t messed up the whole thing this could have happened two month earlier. Anyways, I’m grateful for the opportunity.

The evening brought another meeting this time of a more pleasurable nature. After a hour of official things all iBuGs swarmed the mexican restaurant we tested two weeks before.

Friday
I don’t recall what I exactly planned that day but I ended up setting up Sp’s network which I aptly named SpN. (This is an insider joke. probably only Sp and Ms. Klunkerbotte will understand.) playing with all that gadgets I became all fired up about getting WLAN for myself.
Two partys took place that day but I attended none, because I weren’t in the right mood for Lilis party (which didn’t matter cause she weren’t there either) and I really thought aA’s party was scheduled a week later. Instead I visited Squee where we had dinner and rent a movie. Don’t ever bother to watch “Zu Warriors” which is utter crap. Well, at least the Miramax version is. As an imdb-user pointed out:

“[Miramax] chopped down “Legend of Zu” from 104 minutes to 76 minutes. Important character elements are lopped off, but I guess Miramax thought that helped the “pacing” of the film.“

It has nice SFX tho…

Saturday
Breakfast with tp, Ms. Klunkerbotte and Sp which was nice and another playtime at midBros place with the usual suspects. There isn’t much to tell this time, except that I WON TWO TIMES.

w00t!

And I promised Squee to write it down so I can always be remembered about his when I start whining about unfair-games-that-make-me-loose-every-time. =)

Sunday
Spent the whole day looking for a tool that let’s me synchronize my T610 with my sunbird. Sunbird is a quite cool calendar app from the mozilla people. I hope they keep up the good work cause version 0.2 (which in fact is the standalone-version of version 0.(2+x) of the mozilla calendar extension) looks very promising.

Edited on Feb 18th 2005, 16:15 by jeck

Wieder was gelernt…

Published
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on February 9, 2005
in Art, Food and g-blog
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Das englische bei Schriftsätzen verwendete Adjektiv “bold” sollte richtig mit “halbfett” übersetz werden. Ein typographisches “fett” heißt in Englisch nämlich “black”. Das erklärt auch, warum es Fonts gibt, die zum Beispiel “Arial Black” heißen. Ich dachte immer, der Begriff sei irgendwie im Zusammenhang mit Druckerschwärze entstanden.

Formfleisch scheint aus durch Chemikalien von den Knochen abgelöstem Fleisch gewonnen zu werden. Dabei sorgen Bakterien dafür, dass in dem Fleisch Fasern entstehen und es so authentischer wirkt. Ich habe diese Information heute in der Mensa von 46halbe gehört und nicht weiter verifiziert. Im Zweifelsfall reicht es immer noch für einen urbanen Mythos…

Edited on Feb 8th 2005, 22:55 by jeck

Rules of productivity

Published
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on February 8, 2005
in Work / Job and g-blog
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[Quote] From time to time, I work as a projectmanager. As I wrote my thesis for diploma and work as a freelancing journalist with straight schedules, I see sometimes people struggling with slacking around and managing their work schedule – as I do the same. :) Well, if you look on very productive people – and I don’t mean the capitalistic perfection of optimized self-exploitation here – you will find certain rules behind their work behavior. [Quote]

[Day by Day via 46halbe]

Might be helpful.