PapaScott

John Robb: (on the killing of 11 Chinese workers in Afghanistan) “This begs the question: why are we using market-state techniques (like outsourcing work) in a location that needs nation-state development (ie. local work)? This is the same mistake we continue to make in Iraq.”

Wait For Me

The Telekom (or as they call themselves these days, T-Com) has scheduled our DSL connection to be activated on 21 June, approximately 11 weeks after my I submitted my order on 31 March. Good thing I didn’t order something really rare and precious like a Trabant.

Gone With The Wind

Yesterday’s severe thunderstorm in northern Germany provided one solution to getting rid of unwanted wind generators.

Why’d You Cry-y-y, For The Guy-y-y, Say Goodby-y-ye

The next shoe has dropped in the ever-continuing soap opera that is my workplace. Yesterday management proposed a permanent across-the-board 10% pay cut plus an additional 5% conditional on profit. Say what? Like the Sugababes say, takes more than begging to reverse my brain. Maybe I should bring my resumé to BlogGrill tomorrow, I hear there are a lot a blog companies based in Hamburg…

BBC: German ‘bomb blast’ injures many Cologne Turkish neighborhood of Mülheim, thousands of nails found at scene, at least 17 injured

Kaufrausch

The German Consitutional Court today ruled that the national store closing law is not unconstitutional. So one of the more annoying peculiarities of German life won’t be disappearing just yet. But it will probably better if the law is done away with by lawmakers in Berlin rather than a court ruling in Karlsruhe.

An argument by unions for keeping the law is the protection of retail workers, although I have no idea why they deserve more protection than public safety, health care, or restaurant workers who work on evenings and Sundays. If Germany had a functioning and flexible labor market, retail workers would be easily be able to find jobs that match their private schedule. But if Germany had a functioning and flexible labor market, the country would have a lot less problems period.

See also: Webpropaganda, h-blog, Heiko Hebig, generation neXt

Work Less Harder

When I first saw this graph of the CPU usage at my web host for the last month, I thought that WordPress was using less CPU than Movable Type had.

But then I remembered that I turned off a busy database cron job at the same time I switched blog software. That must explain it, since MT is busy in spurts, not continuously like in the graph.

Staticize Plugin for Wordpress Static pages for WordPress, protection against database crapout. It caches the entire page, even the parts I would rather have dynamic, so for now my held-o-matic is more of a held-o-static.

Apple - AirPort Express “Enjoy your iTunes music library in virtually any room of your house. Share a single broadband Internet connection and USB printer without inconvenient and obtrusive cables. Create an instant wireless network on the go. Extend the range of your current wireless network” €149

Dueling Tubas

In the ongoing Old Fart MP3 Competition in various German blogs, I tried to give one to Der Schockwellenreiter. He didn’t take it, so it’s now up for grabs: Martin Mull, Dueling Tubas (MP3, 1.1 MB) (Via Aquarionics) You’re welcome.

Craig’s BookNotes: Artists indicted for possessing biological test equipment If non-genetic-manipulated food is outlawed, will only outlaws will have non-GM food?

Gotta Broken Heart Again

Is the sign of a good sysadmin that his network at home is a mess? Then I’m a good sysadmin. Up to now I’ve had 5 static addresses in my home network. In getting ready for DSL, I counted my current network devices and came up with 14. One router, one access point, 3 PCs, 3 notebooks, 2 with internal wifi ports, 3 wifi cards… wait, that’s only 13. I’ll have to do an nmap to find the last one. I’m not even counting cell phones with bluetooth. And Christopher doesn’t have any devices of his own, yet.

American Girl om Michael Ballack: Fix that ‘do dude!

Christopher the pirate

Ronald Reagan

I first was aware of politics when I was 5 years old. I knew a few basic facts. The president was Lyndon Johnson, there was a war in Vietnam, and the governor was Ronald Reagan. My dad worked for the state of California, so Ronald Reagan was his boss.

One thing not mentioned in the NYT obituary: Reagan’s election as governor in 1966 sparked the first campus protests at UC Berkeley, and thus the entire student protest movement of the 1960s.

As a college freshman in 1980, my first and only experience as a real journalist was covering the state Republican election party for student radio. Carter conceeded before we reached the hotel.

I think I saw him once, as a blurry shadow in a speeding limo. He was in Minneapolis for a fundraiser. I was in demonstration protesting against something or other.

He was a kind and gentle man whose policies made America less kind and less gentle. I do think he helped to end the Cold War, but not through harsh threats and weapons programs, but through his human friendship with a man named Gorbachev.