After doing some testing on that site for some time now I think it's reasonable to announce that my new home is at http://koboldskind.vox.com ... that doesn't mean i'll disappear from here, just my blog here will not be updated much ... not like it ever was.... not like the vox one has a ton of posts ... but now you know

I just had to share this picture, because it has humor, oline games AND CATS! Cute cats even.
So what more could anyone want?

Is there no good left in the world?

After the shock of having my car undergo heart surgery with dim outlooks for a long life afterwards, today i finally realized that Shadowmarch by Ted Williams is the start of a series. I was hoping until the final pages that there might be a resolution to everything, although i knew there was no way to tie the storylines together. But now i finished the book, and the sequel is not even in print yet.
Nor will it be this year, if amazon is to be trusted.
Evilness! Everywhere!

Well, at least i'm feeling quite awake today for a change and seem to be thinking moderatelty coherently. Yay that! About time!
And I can start looking for a shiny new car now! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

And on top of that, you never know if you hit it or not until it is way too late.

My life has recently changed again, i finally signed my work contract.
This may not sound like a big deal, millions of people do that every day. (A lot less in Germany, but that is a different discussion) The difference for me is that i did not finish university first but aborted in order to take this shop.

This decision wasn't easy for me, and in the end the important factors were

a) due to recent problems the company I have been working for in a student job for four years now has an urgent need for programmers, and i would feel bad if I didn't try to help out there

b) i was getting more and more annoyed with the german university system. And by more and more, what i really mean is [b]MORE AND MORE[/b]

c) money. Money may not be everything, but it is always nice to have =]


Besides my work here, I'm planning to take up classes in distance learning in the hope it is less annoying that you-have-to-be-there-university. Also, i will be going back to some kind of computer science. I really enjoy doing linguistics, but it just isn't available in DL in Germany as far as i could find out, so that decision is easy. The hard part now is: what kind?

Pure computer science?
Bioinformatik? (Computer science with biology mixed in)
Computational Linguistics?
Something with media mixed in? (Although i'm chronically color-deaf, but it sounds like fun)

First i'll have to find out which of these I can do at what school... but I'm not sure yet what to do. Any pointers would be appreciated.

TOAST

Discuss

No, I didn't learn japanese over night. Although I might one day.
I stumbled upon this nice phrase on Language Log.

It means literally "the entire United States wept".
Nothing exciting so far.
But as a phrase it means "nothing important"

Take THAT, USA *g*

The explanation where that usage might come from is quite interesting i think, you can read it here

The only thing i really need now is some help integrating that phrase in my idiolect.
How would i use it in English?
Can i say "I'm bored, tired and sick, but zenbei ga naita" for example, to indicate that it is nothing to worry about?

Nothing much to say today, but i have two links here, quite different in nature, that I just have to share with you.

First, for all of you interested in the somewhat weirder aspects of science, the Athanasius Kircher Society. They're blogging some quite interesting stuff there, and i think Kircher himself may be up for Erisian sainthood.
Hey, wait a minute. I'm a pope. I could make him one! Will have to think about that ...

Second, i will just let this link speak for itself Artisan du chocolat
And just looking at their catalog, the word "artisan" is the best description for what they do. Only in WoW terms it isn't, there they would be "Master Chocolatiers (Skill 300)"-

I'm at work, just walking by the printer where someone was trying to get his printouts

Me: "The printers broken again"
Him: "Well... no arms, no cookies"

Don't know who knows this old joke, but i was damn near rofling.
Some really bad jokes do get better with age it seems

Well well well

looks like i'll be going home some time, then

After you die... Parallel Universe After death, you will continue to exist as if nothing has ever happened. You will continue to be yourself, but because you are in a parallel universe, some things will be different. You may not have married the same person, you might live in a different spot, but you will be the same person underneath it all and you will continue your life unaware that you ever died.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Hmph.... the text is right, but the location in the pic isn't, and i am too lazy to correct the HTML right now. You all now what it means anyway =)

Today we moved back to our old office, after half a year in the other one.
It was only a few days after we had moved there that the brown stuff to get in contact with the air moving device for our whole project. So the move back brought a lot of optimism with it that you could feel creeping along the corridors and infecting people that did not even want to have it.

It was like coming home and ye goode ol' "Westwards! HO!" feeling at the same time.

And everyone realized we had come home when the music started. And by everyone, i mean everyone in the building. Or maybe i some other buildings too. In our new office, we had to keep it down a bit, but now we are back. Now, work can be done again!

The first comment from a coworker was: "You conquered the gaulloise office back then"
*grin*

I simply must direct your attention to this great comic here

http://www.frozenreality.co.uk/comic/bunny/index.php?id=490

Laughed myself silly on that one =]

Of course the usual bullsh*t about me not being responsible for contents of this link, the Napoleonic Wars and my own life applies.

There is training software for just about everything now. Languages, typing, playing golf... hell, i even got spammed for a training software for oral sex a few days ago. Maybe i should have been more interested, now i'm wondering how it works (the software, that is). But there is one topic never considered by those making educational tools: flipping pancakes!

I'm sure i'm not the only one who has some problems in that area. And there is no way to learn. No classes. No private trainers. And no training software. Why did no one think of that? A quick analysis of the subject tells me it should be quite possible, using an USB frying pan with movement and position sensors, to write an application that tells you what you are doing wrong. And when we connect it to the USB already, why not get some power from there and make real pancakes, with automatically rated flipping. At least then i would know why i have a 450W power supply in my computer when people ask me what that much power is good for.

I need it for my USB frying pan

The logical next step would be to make it wireless then, but transmitting the power might lead to a lot of people complaining about headaches in my neighborhood. Good thing i have a wireless frying pan then. I can either make them perfectly flipped pancakes in their own living room or, if that does not satisfy them, hit'em on the head with the pan, without being hindered by that annoying cable.



And a special thanks goes to the manor woman that said, a long time ago: "Carpet is no good for the kitchen, lets put tiles there ..."

Today it occured to me that the question

Who am I?

is quite easy to answer with a pointer (or a reference, if you prefer) but incredibly hard to answer with an object. As any coder should be able to tell you, sometimes there is a huge difference wether you pass a pointer or an object. Maybe that explains some things about people asking that question.

After the great public outrage that ensued from me not posting for a few days, i now report back.

The christmas season was quite uneventful, there even were some pleasant surprises. No one tried to give me presents of soap or deodorant this year. And they say you can't teach old relatives new tricks =)
We also had 3 consecutive days of snow, which hasn't happened for a few years now.... Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
I can make some new book recommendations now: "Bridge of Birds" is really worth a read. It's set in medieval/mythological China and has some interesting plot twists. Not saying to much here, just read it. Quote "My family name is Li and my personal name is Kao, and I have a slight flaw in my character"


Now I'm looking forward to the 2-year LAN party that i just came back from shopping for. Not many people there, but it's been much too long since i played. I guess i will get my ass handed to me on a silver plate.
Or maybe not... if hardware has anything to do with it, a winner is me. My new computer arrived 2 days before christmas, and after the nForce 4 chipset was done bitching about the SATA-2 interface, if works like a charm.

In closing, a culinary alert: never ever make a Sauce Choron (Sauce Hollandaise with tomatoes) when you plan to step on a scales some time that month. Just don't. It's impossible to stop eating.

They never happen. A watched pot never boils. All that stuff.
Of course we all know it's true. I think it might be even more true for me than it is for the rest of the world.
But sometimes, every now and then, life goes and really really RUBS! IT! IN!

I'm sitting here desperately waiting for UPS to bring a packet that i think should arrive today. Their tracker software throws some weird error messages, so no help there. Nothing special so far, right? Right. Ooooonly: there were 3 UPS cars going down my street this morning. And that's only those that i saw. Three! In numbers: 3. And none of them stopped here!

Stuff like that is almost like back home. It's annoying as hell, but it tells you the world cares for you enough to get on your nerves.
I really appreciate that. But now it would be great to have that packet here

...
...
...

Some special greetings here go to those rather cute beings who found my comment page and made it their personal chat room *waves* *winks*

Knowing myself, i have no idea what i will do with this and how often you can expect updates here. You see, us kobolds, we're notoriously moody, and while having a LJ might seem a good idea right now, tomorrow could have me completely forgetting about it. Or posting 42 messages, who knows. Well, more likely 42 messages, since my overall mood seems to be on a consistent upswing right now. And that has nothing to do with me having consumed about 30% of the annual south american coffee export today. Not at all. I can stop any time i like... but i don't want to.

And now, back to reading http://www.springframework.org/ which i might be using in large quantities in the near future. Learning never ends for a coder geek, it just makes everything you learned before obsolete.