tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-107894162011-12-17T10:53:28.736+01:00Relax, step back for a cuppa and some comforting words.marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comBlogger1431100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-15259189869114741912011-12-17T10:53:00.001+01:002011-12-17T10:53:28.740+01:00

Es schneit das erste Mal richtig in Innsbruck (in höheren Lagen liegt schon mehr als eine Woche Schnee), liegen bleibt aber noch nicht viel. Schönstes Winterfeeling...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-19616118194049223142011-11-14T20:15:00.000+01:002011-11-14T20:15:40.132+01:00

I am featured in an article in the New York Times today on traffic shaping in broadband networks. Pretty cool :)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-9460435391422357532011-09-19T09:21:00.001+02:002011-09-19T09:22:35.072+02:00

I woke up with big snow flakes falling from the sky. I never saw it snowing this time of the year. As I have a day of vacation today, I can watch them all day long.I also remembered this song today: The title of the song is a full fit. Not necessarily the melancolic lyrics.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-73666834070986663712011-08-03T22:43:00.000+02:002011-08-03T22:43:01.125+02:00

So what did I learn today?When the Linux kernel documentation says about a function "this will modify the original iovec", it will indeed modify the original iovec. And it will modify it in a way you are not anticipating, so any attempt to undo this modification is futile and will fail horribly - I eventually stopped counting the number of hard hangups of my test system.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-80518172379107645682011-07-28T18:30:00.000+02:002011-07-28T18:30:02.362+02:00

Vielleicht könnte man, da er jetzt nichts mehr zu tun hat, Heiner Geißler zur Vermittlung nach Washington D.C. schicken: Karikatur von Klaus Stuttmann. Ist dort ja ähnlich vertrackt wie bei Stuttgart 21.Die Karikaturen von Klaus Stuttmann sind übrigens zu empfehlen.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-57189136568974563902011-07-20T16:53:00.001+02:002011-07-20T16:54:22.483+02:00

I am just back from a hiking tour in the Alps with my dad. Weather changed rather rapidly: one day sun (and hot), on the next morning: Snow!The photo is from Wednesday morning. At times it was rather hard to find the path with snow covering everything.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-13910936924502957532011-06-24T20:56:00.001+02:002011-06-24T20:56:16.260+02:00

We are growing strawberries on our balcony. I was recently wondering why the berries on one of the plants would not become red. Then, I found out that I, by accident, bought a strawberry plant with white strawberries. They are delicious, but it is not that easy to see when they are ripe. At least I am no longer waiting for them to become red now...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-65821748805847716722011-05-18T20:40:00.001+02:002011-05-18T20:41:39.622+02:00

It snowed over the weekend in the Alps and left us with a brilliant and perfect mountain scenery. I took this photo this morning. It shows the mountains in the north of Innsbruck.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-56438717022415981872011-04-12T21:47:00.001+02:002011-04-12T21:47:57.097+02:00

Living in the middle of the Alps allows for very nice Sunday walks ;)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-25149286405671351382011-03-24T19:03:00.001+01:002011-03-24T22:03:58.712+01:00

Pretty warm these days, at least in the afternoon (still frosty at nights). And today, I caught a hint of spring, sitting in my living room ,the balcony door wide open, enjoying the the songs of the birds and the fresh nice air flowing in while having supper.I am looking forward to the days I can have breakfast on the balcony. :)P.S.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-44902644774722003932011-01-27T20:16:00.001+01:002011-01-27T20:16:24.461+01:00

I am currently trying to find a good Austrian beer (Pils). I, of course, know my favorite German beers, but I have to start fresh here. In the end it is trial and error (unfortunately). At least, there are far less beers in Austria than in Germany.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-19089128429476260102011-01-23T21:08:00.001+01:002011-01-23T21:15:38.108+01:00

Letztes Wochenende haben wir das gute Wetter und die nahe Bergwelt dazu genutzt, eine Wanderung zum Meissner Haus in den Tuxer Voralpen zu unternehmen. Bei blauem Himmel und Sonnenschein sind wir den verschneiten Wanderweg hinaufgestapft - teilweise sogar auf blankem Eis. Auf der Hütte gab es dann einen riesen Berg Kaiserschmarn und Knödel mit Kraut - die Stärkung für den Rückweg.Es gibt hier

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-59967890763619501352010-12-06T19:48:00.001+01:002010-12-06T19:48:32.477+01:00

Heute Morgen an der Straßenbahnhaltestelle: "Linie 6 entfällt wegen technischer Gebrechen".Österreichisch ist manchmal sehr süß.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-11625183415147511242010-12-06T19:47:00.001+01:002010-12-06T19:47:13.900+01:00

Samstag habe ich wie jedes Jahr einen Quarkstollen gebacken. Dieses Mal - unfreiwillig - eine kalorienreduzierte Variante: ohne Zucker. Das war natürlich ein Unfall, auch wenn der Stollen sonst durchaus gelungen ist. Nächstes Mal muss ich ganz genau schauen, dass ich die wichtigste Zutat nicht wieder vergesse.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-34900093608860120322010-11-29T20:27:00.001+01:002010-11-29T20:27:09.865+01:00

Ein kleiner Einblick in unser Umzugschaos, auch wenn es auf dem Foto halb so schlimm wirkt. Auf dem Bild sieht man unser Wohnzimmer, das aber schon seit einigen Wochen viel wohnlicher ist. Aber erst jetzt habe ich die Muse, das Foto hochzuladen.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-53297688101287385562010-11-06T20:33:00.001+01:002010-11-06T20:33:52.485+01:00

Seit letzter Woche ist mein Kühlschrank kaputt. Nur gut, dass es Herbst und dementsprechend kühl draußen ist. So dient das Küchenfensterbrett gerade als Aushilfskühlschrank - auf die Weise wartet da gerade auch ein kühles Bier auf mich :)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-918941690235720242010-11-06T09:55:00.001+01:002010-11-06T09:55:29.490+01:00

Die Sonne scheint, ich sitze in meiner neuen Wohnung mit einer guten Tasse Darjeeling und der Zeit beim Frühstück. Im Hintergrund die Alpen, auf dem Gipfeln schon mit Schnee. So kann das Wochenende beginnen!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-78313484054381305012010-10-27T22:29:00.001+02:002010-10-27T22:29:38.219+02:00

I graduated today! After 5 years in grad school I defended successfully today. I still cannot believe it.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-21733754792378427112010-10-25T17:32:00.001+02:002010-10-25T17:32:13.340+02:00

Wie war das mit der FDP und dem Versprechen "bloß keine Steuererhöhungen? Kann man wohl in der Pfeife rauchen solche Aussagen. Ob sie nach der geplanten Tabaksteuererhöhung jetzt wohl unter 5% in den Umfragen rutschen?

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-25090941854148255732010-10-14T10:53:00.001+02:002010-10-14T10:55:42.668+02:00

Warum mag eigentlich niemand die GEZ? Gut, sie will Geld von uns, aber zumindest in meinem Fall ist das nichtmal das Problem. Das Problem ist, dass bei der GEZ alle unter Generalverdacht stehen, die GEZ um die Gebühren zu betrügen. Diese Haltung ist mir in den letzten Monaten gleich mehrfach aufgefallen.Die Beispiele:Ich melde meinen Fernseher ab. Statt diese Abmeldung hinzunehmen, kriege ich nur

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-9639795564323197542010-09-28T11:14:00.001+02:002010-09-28T11:14:51.495+02:00

I will not have a TV in my new appartment, but still some TV/video in the living room is a must, and in the end this is exactly why I bought my Mac Mini for some years back.I recently found Plex, a very cool Media Center for Macs. It integrates very well with the videos I have on my hard drive (it groups episodes and seasons of TV series I have) and has extensions for Internet video and music

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-33645415256282796912010-09-03T13:01:00.001+02:002010-09-03T13:01:33.726+02:00

Baden. Saarland. Österreich? ;-)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-84605081816539005392010-08-12T21:47:00.001+02:002010-08-12T21:47:53.646+02:00

I found this pretty amazing chello music from Zoe Keating.You can listen to 6 tracks on her webpage. Very melodic and strong music.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-12612561180222955862010-06-11T11:29:00.001+02:002010-06-11T11:30:54.022+02:00

Gestern habe ich meine Dissertation eingereicht. Ein schöner und seit langem erwarteter Tag.Yesterday I submitted my thesis. A good and long-awaited day.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-43611041089525744302010-05-17T21:21:00.001+02:002010-05-17T21:21:36.792+02:00

Michael Ballack, Kapitän der Deutschen Fußballnationalmannschaft verletzt sich und kann deswegen nicht mit zur WM.Offenbar ein Ereignis von Weltrang. Die Nachrichten sprechen von einer "schweren Verletzung", was man in der Regel eher bei Autounfällen oder Attentaten hört. Es ist der Aufmacher auf eigentlich jeder Nachrichtenwebseite und die Verletzung hat es sogar in die Wikipedia geschafft.Die

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-77396965992284657972010-03-21T11:53:00.001+01:002010-03-21T11:53:29.286+01:00

Spring has finally arrived here, after weeks of Siberian cold. The first signs of spring are, as usual, the Crocus that start growing everywhere around town. Very pretty! 

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-40909671443811369442010-01-16T09:20:00.001+01:002010-01-16T09:20:44.044+01:00

I got up at 6:20 today for a paper deadline (they always have to be at 9am CET or midnight PT, haven't they?). It was not as tough as I thought - given that I went to bed at around 1:30am and like to sleep long on weekends.Now I am sitting here for breakfast (after the deadline, of course). No bread left. :( Need to warm up some rolls I guess.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-30997779834620656172009-12-13T12:10:00.001+01:002009-12-13T12:10:18.581+01:00

Today we are having the first snow of this winter in Saarbrücken! Not enough to also cover the streets, but it is nice to see cars and rooftops covered in white while sitting inside with a delicious cuppa.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-62151441221541255562009-08-21T07:27:00.001+02:002009-08-21T07:27:50.912+02:00

Did you know that Microsoft Office 2007 will not open two files with the same name but different file paths concurrently? So if you open example.doc in your Document folder and then example.doc from an email, Office will tell you that it cannot do that until you close the other Office window that already displays a file named example.doc. Very smart...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-40201595453500192972009-08-17T03:54:00.001+02:002009-08-17T03:54:19.373+02:00

This is probably caused by the economic crisis and people easily talking about Billions of Euro: German news magazine "Der Spiegel" reviews the movie "District 9" (German only) and calls it a low budget movie - with a budget of only 20 Million Dollars. And they have the nerves to compare it to other (real) low budget films like The Blair Witch Project (way below 1 Million Dollars).Please, 20

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-11300278151466948072009-08-05T07:59:00.001+02:002009-08-05T07:59:12.865+02:00

Nach meiner persönlichen Zeitrechnung ist die dritte von vier Packungen Gummibärchen angebrochen (ich halte mich gut, oder?).Die Zeit vergeht echt schnell, nur noch 4 Wochen und schon ist mein Praktikum rum und ich darf in den wohlverdienten Urlaub.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-65411910176572364002009-08-05T07:57:00.001+02:002009-08-05T07:57:31.796+02:00

The Syntax of C# look very familiar if you know Java. In fact, it was rather easy for me to start programming in C# as I already knew Java a bit. But there are slight differences under the hood that can cost you a lot of time while debugging.For once, while Java is a portable language, C# clearly is not - and not only because Microsoft only supports the .Net platform on Windows. While in Java

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-36542143591849495752009-05-02T10:24:00.001+02:002009-08-05T07:50:39.906+02:00

Vielleicht nicht neu, aber ein Satz aus der dieswöchigen Zeit von Peter Dausend erklärt wohl ziemlich genau, warum manches im Saarland so läuft wie es läuft. Sinngemäß heißt es dort, dass die Saarländer einen latentenden Minderwertigkeitskomplex als verspätete Deutsche hätten.Dann ist also der verspätete Beitritt zur Bundesrepublik nach dem zweiten Weltkrieg dafür verantwortlich, dass im Saarland

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-49322887819122438722009-02-11T14:03:00.001+01:002009-02-11T14:03:04.146+01:00

Ähnlich wie die Musik- und Filmindustrie plagen sich auch die Printmedien (aka "das gedruckte Wort") mit dem Internet und dessen Einfluss auf ihren Bereich. In Zeiten von News-Portalen, Online-Redaktion und allerlei Laien-Pressestellen (siehe Twitter, CNN iReport) kann man sich schon fragen, warum man überhaupt noch eine Zeitung oder ein Magazin kaufen sollte.Im Vergleich zu Laien-Reportern

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-47749179396798682672009-01-29T13:14:00.001+01:002009-01-29T13:15:34.283+01:00

Wondering what I am working at at the moment? Well, you might want to read this or this. (or this if you prefer German).My Glasnost tool is now part of the new Measurement Lab platform, which goal it is to enhance network transparency!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-35047611480078674322008-11-17T20:04:00.001+01:002008-11-17T20:04:07.141+01:00

I yesterday experienced how Saarbrücken feels like at a Sunday at 2am in the morning (so it actually was already Monday).The streets were empty, no cars, everything dark and calm. You can just walk in the middle of the road.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-85260136413343113212008-07-24T18:37:00.001+02:002008-07-24T18:37:11.633+02:00

We all know that: You are sitting at home Sunday night. There is nothing interesting on TV and also your DVD collection is not appealing that day. But hey, this is the Internet age, so why not just rent a movie online and watch it. That's convenient and just perfect. So I checked out the services available in Germany and the situation sucks:I am running a Mac (so I am not even ranting about that

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-32369100255340163262008-06-19T18:17:00.001+02:002008-06-19T18:17:41.732+02:00

Happy Birthday Garfield. 30 years ago, the first comic strip was published by Jim Davis. I love this comic and its humor a lot:(Click to enlarge)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-15846618053220910182008-05-19T11:37:00.001+02:002008-05-19T11:37:49.719+02:00

The results of the tool I blogged about earlier has hit the public media: APhas written an article about our most recent findings.Update: Almost all online news site covered this story. I especially like the Ars Technica review.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-19249211426650226462008-04-11T13:39:00.001+02:002008-04-11T13:39:54.775+02:00

My new research project deals with ISP traffic manipulation. We just released a test that can detect ISP BitTorrent blocking or throttling. You can find it at http://broadband.mpi-sws.mpg.de/transparency/bttest.php.The webpage also features the full source code of the tool and a results page that gives an overview of our findings so far (and will be updated periodically with new results).

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-71699308167982507442008-02-25T10:35:00.001+01:002008-02-25T10:35:59.313+01:00

I am just back from a (almost) week-long vacation in Stockholm. Although a little chilly at this time of the year, we had a really great time. We had sunny weather and saw a lot of this beautiful city. And as you probably can guess, we had no trouble finding some decent places for food. :DAfter this very nice and relaxing vacation, I am now back at work, moving forward.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-16251383092700112162007-11-19T11:07:00.001+01:002007-11-19T11:07:43.030+01:00

I recently updated my MacOS X installation on my "living-room" MacMini. While now FrontRow is finally usable (not counting the weirdly acting podcast part of it), the update attitude of Apple is unclear to me. Instead of leaving my configuration untouched (especially where I manually changed configuration file as for the samba server), it replaced my config with its own one without even telling

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-19139783679118264142007-10-22T00:05:00.000+02:002007-10-22T00:08:05.209+02:00

So I am back in the USA, this time for two weeks including a full week in San Francisco. I really like this city and I explore a lot of it (which results in really bad sore feet for me).I also started adding some new blog entries to my (German) Inside-USA Blog.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-40749554458473534152007-09-23T23:45:00.001+02:002007-09-23T23:45:17.437+02:00

Say "Hello" to Lilja, a new citizen of our earth and daughter of my dear friends Eva & Oliver. It was a touching moment today to see her for the first time. God bless her.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-76344390456846894542007-09-06T23:16:00.001+02:002007-09-06T23:16:34.239+02:00

The main reason to use emulation software is to run applications that are not available for your operating system inside your operating system. I recently had a slightly different motivation.While tidying up, I found this old adventure computer game I loved to play while being in school (yes, it is really old ;) ). Suffering some nostalgic feelings, I installed it (Windows of course), just to

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-12828572323326314932007-08-30T10:31:00.001+02:002007-08-30T10:31:28.113+02:00

Michael found this really nice mug design that especially helps our English friends to put exact the right amount of milk in their tea.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-40191303569287576882007-07-22T12:24:00.001+02:002007-07-22T12:24:48.876+02:00

After a lot of hard work, it is finally there: My second publication and - even more important - my first publication as a first author at this years Internet Measurement Conference. I am really proud of this!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-38572644552627714922007-07-22T12:21:00.001+02:002007-07-22T12:21:24.192+02:00

My DSL line was recently upgraded to 14MBit/s. My first thought was that this is somewhat unnecessary, the 6 MBit/s was pretty much fine before. On the other hand, downloading an ISO-image with 1.5MB/s is really cool :)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-89587343920556445662007-07-06T19:11:00.001+02:002007-07-06T19:11:20.740+02:00

Man, it is July and instead of a decent German summer we experience a weather more like the English (Cambridge 2004) spring: In the morning, it is gray and rainy, in the evening, the sky is blue and the sun is shining - however, it is still way to chilly for July. So where's the German summer? No global warming here ;)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-23883491867157696322007-06-28T21:37:00.001+02:002007-06-28T21:37:45.380+02:00

5 minutes after I left work today I ended up with a flat tire on my bike. I had to walk home carrying the bike.While repairing it I found a small puncture, easy to fix. But I still wonder: What caused the puncture? And thinking back: From all the punctures I had so far I can explain only two (one being my brother hitting my tire with a dart ;) ). All the others are total mysteries to me. Are

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-17600244196152248462007-06-17T13:18:00.001+02:002007-06-17T13:18:25.059+02:00

Is TV in any way necessary for your life? My claim was always: No, you do not need TV, but sometimes it is really nice to relax. And after many news shows nowadays also allow you to watch online (like the really great service of Tagesschau in Germany), staying up to date is easy and convenient even without a TV set (and I really have/want to watch a news show).After a week of ignoring my TV -

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-86927991458121714062007-06-11T09:15:00.001+02:002007-06-11T09:15:24.001+02:00

Well, the kayak trip was rather short, being generous it lasted just one hour. A paddle broke and we were unable to lent another one somewhere. Anyway, we did a pretty good job in still having an awesome trip. Afterwards, i would call it a Culinary Tour.Instead of "walking on water" we enjoyed nature (including a very nice lake), had very good talks, and awesome food (this includes great wine!).

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-89005709920116965822007-06-04T18:59:00.001+02:002007-06-04T18:59:02.266+02:00

I am really looking forward to a short kayak-trip with my best friend in the south of Germany later this week. It's been a while since we did such a trip, but it was always great and full of joy. It is one of these trips I really love: Having some adventures during the day and ending it with a nice bottle of wine :)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-91235804060050906162007-04-16T09:30:00.001+02:002007-04-16T09:30:06.065+02:00

I am just back from a conference trip to Cambridge, MA.Coming back into a really nice spring in Germany (> 20°C), it is hard to believe that I needed a winter coat and gloves in Cambridge.As I have big troubles sleeping on a plane, I tried various strategies so far. This time, I skipped my have-a-beer-before-take-off strategy in favor for a eat-as-much-as-you-can strategy. And I swear that the

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-39632632613457004442007-04-05T17:28:00.000+02:002007-04-05T17:35:00.554+02:00

I just came back from a very good short-trip (4 days) to Porto (Portugal). Porto has both, great beaches and a really nice Old Town facing a river. This together with the nice company I had ;) made it an awesome vacation.The 4 days were just right to walk the city including its beaches and the beautiful river valley, visiting the museum of modern art and the most important tourist sites (mainly

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-47838431405301350732007-02-13T13:32:00.001+01:002007-02-13T13:34:06.458+01:00

Global warming has been a hot topic lately (this is an unintended word joke). While the EU started talking with big words what to change (which will surely end in small actions) with especially Germany resisting against strict rules for car companies (my government is again embarrassing, sorry),New Zealand wants to take the lead in reducing CO2. Thank you! I hope they really do it and that others

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-21927820485186447862007-02-01T17:28:00.001+01:002007-02-01T17:28:42.250+01:00

My exploration of the Mac world goes on and the longer I do this, the less impressed I am.OK, the hardware is clearly cool designed (while a little overpriced), clear point for the Mac.But what's about the rest? It's a lot about advertising which is clearly just marketing. Still waiting for the day when virus programmers start conquering the Mac - or Linux - to blast away those "I am a Mac, I am

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1169054179567068662007-01-17T18:16:00.000+01:002007-01-17T18:16:19.750+01:00

The life von index cards, represented by just graphs. Some of them are really great!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1168596710141099212007-01-12T11:08:00.000+01:002007-01-12T11:11:50.153+01:00

Arthur C. Clarke, author of e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey, has some very fine quotes as I just found out. Some of them are collected on Wikiquote. Especially Clarke's Three Laws are very interesting!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1168004398088385552007-01-05T14:39:00.000+01:002007-01-05T14:39:58.123+01:00

I just came back from an awesome US-East-Coast road-trip. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of the east coast (at least of the upper half). Stay tuned for photos in my photo gallery...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1166573175416475602006-12-20T01:06:00.000+01:002006-12-20T01:06:15.470+01:00

I just got a brand new Mac Mini, so finally I am going to use MacOS X a bit, at least for multimedia purposes. I kind of like this thing with its remote. However, I was never a fan of quicktime and probably will never be (screws up my DivX videos).And hey, I am a computer scientist, it took me just an hour to freeze the OS. It was really easy, I mounted a NFS share, umounted it, rebooted. The NFS

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1165858153902544182006-12-11T18:29:00.000+01:002006-12-11T18:29:13.990+01:00

I am not sure how this is in other countries, but there's a very strange (yet unofficial) German tradition to torture people with the very same christmas songs on radio every year.And this morning it happened to me again, the first time I heard Wham!'s "Last Christmas" on radio and it is rather sure that they will play it again at least any other day.While this is a pretty good motivation for me

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1165757814323422852006-12-10T14:36:00.000+01:002006-12-10T14:36:54.356+01:00

In my personal challenge to see as many capitals as possible, I added another one to my list just yesterday. Luxembourg is the European capital of culture 2007 and I went to the opening festival this Saturday which turned out to be a lot of fun - some really gorgeous fireworks and very nice live music.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1164648625394349152006-11-27T18:30:00.000+01:002006-11-27T18:30:25.500+01:00

No, I am not taking about a famous sports brand.I am making the case for just doing it instead of racking your brain. OK, I am also not saying you should switch off your brain entirely. But I tend to believe today that when you feel it's now or never, just go for it.If it fails, fine. (Maybe you gained experience at least). If you succeed, great! Anyway, it is worth trying. So just do it.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1163254955416935452006-11-11T15:22:00.000+01:002006-11-11T15:22:35.460+01:00

I was looking for the Russian version of Happy Birthday for a very dear friend and found a website that lists translations of Happy Birthday in a whole lot of languages.There's another page that tries to give you the pronounciation (if you are German)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1159115890169366652006-09-24T18:38:00.000+02:002006-09-24T18:38:10.206+02:00

Ever seen a handicapped computer mouse? Looks like I have one now, works totally fine, but the left mouse button sometimes stops to work. :(As I am not a hardcore-gamer, this never happened to me before. I think I need to shop for a replacement...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1159015784729795182006-09-23T14:49:00.000+02:002006-09-23T14:49:47.666+02:00

I finally managed to get the VGA Out of my notebook to work the way I want it. This means, a big desktop spanning my widescreen LCD and the LCD screen of the laptop. Never worked because both have different resolutions.But today, I managed to install the latest ATi drivers for Linux and somehow managed to succeed! :DMust be my lucky day today!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1158225047406727582006-09-14T11:10:00.000+02:002006-09-14T11:10:47.406+02:00

Remember back in the old times, Lemmings! surely was mone of my favorite games. So if you do not feel to fire up an DOS emulator to get back this great game, how about trying out on the web:Lemmings! just looking like the original, but plays in your browser. Awesome!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1158224293150676372006-09-14T10:58:00.000+02:002006-09-14T11:01:35.376+02:00

Some time now we see a arms race between DRM software and DRM "remover". Of course, also Apple is in it with iTunes, but hey, getting again around their DRM was very fast.I like this kind of software, you still have to buy the songs (which is fine with me, prices at least at iTunes seem to be OK), but after that you can get rid of the DRM stuff - and (for me) play it on your MP3 player or even

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1158097670821379432006-09-12T23:47:00.000+02:002006-09-12T23:47:50.863+02:00

It's time to make plans. My first year as a phd student is over soon, the work is hard but mostly fun and I like what I do. Time to think about how the past year was and what should be in the coming one.I am also thinking about travel plans. A good friend of mine is currently in Zürich, I really should visit her this year.And fresh out there, the plan to make a road trip on the US' east coast

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1156776974909829612006-08-28T16:56:00.000+02:002006-08-28T16:56:14.980+02:00

It seems since I am back in Germany, I have to pay back all the nice sunshine days in San Diego. There was hardly a no-rain day for the last couple of weeks.I am back on the football field, finally. After pausing for more than a year, I have now two opportunities at once to have some fun with sports. However, this is a little ugly at the moment given the weather...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1153845305167641842006-07-25T18:33:00.000+02:002006-07-25T18:43:34.603+02:00

Finally, also this happened: I listened to my first podcast (sorry, a German one). I am still not sure why a combination of rss feed and mp3 has such a bloated, fancy sounding name, but anyway.At least it was easy to use, thanks to Amarok.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1153177974181547462006-07-18T01:09:00.000+02:002006-07-18T01:12:54.196+02:00

While in Germany amazon.de is at 10 product categories, amazon.com (the US branch) has 34 product categories at this point of time. The latest is its Grocery Department. There seems to be little left they are not selling yet.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1153111435873713612006-07-17T06:41:00.000+02:002006-07-17T06:43:55.883+02:00

It's a shame, I am now a month here in San Diego and still I have not found the time yet to swim in the Pacific Ocean. What a shame.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1151787662726649512006-07-01T23:01:00.000+02:002006-07-01T23:01:02.766+02:00

Well, the football world cup just turned into an European-only tournament. Europe rules!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1151595928758457472006-06-29T17:45:00.000+02:002006-06-29T17:45:28.836+02:00

So finally the US found out that Guantanamo is mostly illegal. Congratulations for this insight! Next time, just ask me and I tell you right away.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1149604483527229742006-06-06T16:34:00.000+02:002006-06-06T16:34:45.066+02:00

Weather was pretty chilly here over the past weeks. Luckily, this will change for me really soon, as I have the pleasure to spend two months in San Diego at UCSD for research collaboration until August. Nice desktop switching, isn't it?!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1146240389259573292006-04-28T18:06:00.000+02:002006-04-28T18:06:29.326+02:00

It took them 6 long months to finally discover my work email address, but since a few days, I finally see spam in my inbox - though, at most one spam mail a day. Suckers...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1145453463134419782006-04-19T15:31:00.000+02:002006-04-19T15:31:03.193+02:00

Looks like spring is entering the country finally. Good time to get rid of this stupid bus and use my bike again - starting from today!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1143833576251486672006-03-31T21:32:00.000+02:002006-03-31T21:32:56.293+02:00

This one saved my day:There was a message waiting for me at my answering machine and guess what, it was another computer doing a marketing survey. Thus, the survey computer was asking my answering questions and was quite upset not getting a response.Man, I need to programme a intelligent answering machine that will appropriately answer to such calls. You can choose a mode, maybe the answering

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1142972496767100312006-03-21T21:21:00.000+01:002006-03-21T21:21:36.936+01:00

Reducing everything to yes and no, right and wrong, and black and white is not a good strategy when thinking about a person - especially not if it is a woman...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1142170790030649622006-03-12T14:39:00.000+01:002006-03-12T14:39:50.060+01:00

A friend visiting yesterday recognized that I managed to sort in my stuff more and more :)As some friends will come over tonight, I took the chance and pinned another picture to the wall. I get closer in turning the chaos into my room™.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1142011138238703792006-03-10T18:18:00.000+01:002006-03-10T18:18:58.290+01:00

It's done! Spending most of my evenings this week, I finished composing my first song yesterday night! It's an awesome feeling and I hope the person I wrote it for will like it.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1141726115680966702006-03-07T11:08:00.000+01:002006-03-07T11:08:35.750+01:00

Looks like another good week (while really different from last one). The soundtrack for this week in my head is written in a Maestoso style at the moment (if you know what I mean).It can be done and I will do it!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1141309936908745442006-03-02T15:32:00.000+01:002006-03-02T15:32:16.956+01:00

Surpisingly, this week turned out to be just great (almost out of the blue). Progress in almost every area.And especially today, winter came back. We had almost a snow storm this morning and everything is covered by snow. I hope it stays like this.

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1139840145966813632006-02-13T15:15:00.000+01:002006-02-13T15:15:46.013+01:00

Want to know how to get a severe jetlag without travelling? Just ask me...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1138814137229038222006-02-01T18:15:00.000+01:002006-02-01T18:15:37.270+01:00

Normal, daily crisis: You analyze some data and dig out some old script that should do the job (maybe with some minor adjustments). But a problem while capturing the data let the script produce bogus output, you never believe. Instead of seeing the obvious thing (= the trace was messed up), you think about the script and discover some mayor shortcomming which renders all results from the script

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1135705141697621442005-12-27T18:39:00.000+01:002005-12-27T18:39:01.946+01:00

So, I am back at work. The whole institute is empty (deserted is a better word), so less distraction. But while I was away they replaced my LCD display. It was fine so far, but the got me even bigger one (1920x1200), it's huge. How I am supposed to use my CRT (15'') at home ever again??? I like it ;)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1135358407668223852005-12-23T18:20:00.000+01:002005-12-23T18:20:07.696+01:00

I finally graduated (which means that I had my defense). This is in particular great, as I do not need to work for it anymore in the nights - OK, now I work for my current project in the night :P But at the moment it is good to be home again to step back (while still working), before I have to go back to Saarbruecken right after christmas (still not sure what I will do at Silvester). The

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1134826642325643252005-12-17T14:37:00.000+01:002005-12-17T14:37:25.346+01:00

So many things can stop you from finishing a task: Software that will not do what it is supposed to (in this case time out after some time). Or there seems to be a bug you cannot track down (in this case a piece of software that should simulate a tcp connection and misbehaves for a bunch of host). Even worse, if the operating system behaves madly (in this case probably firewall settings that slow

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1134684284649397432005-12-15T23:04:00.000+01:002005-12-15T23:04:44.683+01:00

This year is completely different from any one before. Even more is this advent time, while I am still happy how many things work out. It's hard but I am still on the top!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1133905624895516972005-12-06T22:47:00.000+01:002005-12-06T22:47:04.923+01:00

It happened today: I worked more than 12 hours (after 11 hours yesterday). This is insane, but will probably help with a lot of things (one is that I get my work done :P). Chocolade and christmas cookies help to survive over the day (the best season of all!).

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1133559976435342402005-12-02T22:46:00.000+01:002005-12-02T22:46:16.473+01:00

I just put the first of my pictures on my wall. Time to celebrate! Let's see, if the next one takes again a month...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1133469040922589002005-12-01T21:30:00.000+01:002005-12-01T21:30:40.956+01:00

OK, it was pain before in 2004, but it turnes out that Planet-Lab is probably worse today. Took me the whole day together with a colleage to find out why Planet-Lab will behave totally different to "normal" Linux servers. The code was already hacked to work on Planet-Lab, but now I have to redo it tomorrow (an even uglier hack). There's a lot going on and some friends are really nice to me

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1132779741436047272005-11-23T22:02:00.000+01:002005-11-24T00:17:21.346+01:00

I had to postpone the beer until tonight. But this time I will definitely drink it. I will send in my thesis tomorrow morning *YEAH!*Update: The thesis is sent in and the beer was really good :)

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1132682310391763792005-11-22T18:58:00.000+01:002005-11-22T18:58:30.420+01:00

OK, this Monday (yesterday) sucked so much. As I worked all weekend (including the nights) on my thesis, I was in a bad mood and some things that happened around made me really upset. At least, the day ended with a long phone call to a friend of mine :) Tuesday was much better: I WILL finish my thesis today, there are only a few corrections left (and there is already a beer in the fridge to

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1132224503179777672005-11-17T11:48:00.000+01:002005-11-17T11:48:23.220+01:00

In fact I like Java: No segfaults, the compiler spits out helpful errors and so on. But at the moment I am forced to use JNI (Java native interface), to access some dll functions from a Java app. As some might know (as Andy does ;) ), this is real pain. Although everything compiles just fine, the JVM will spit out stupid errors which leads you to the wrong places to look for failures. PAIN!

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1132049903828035082005-11-15T11:18:00.000+01:002005-11-15T11:18:23.863+01:00

It's a pain to do "normal" phd work (mainly JNI, what a pain for itself) and finishing your diploma thesis in your leisure time. But finally, it looks like it's coming to an end. 2 or three more evenings could be enough to finish and correct the last few chapters. Preparing the final talk and the German abstract (which is simply a joke that I have to do it) is then the last finisher before

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1131702189001016602005-11-11T10:43:00.000+01:002005-11-11T10:43:12.503+01:00

So it happened today, I am officially no more a citizen of Baden-Wuerttemberg but of the Saarland. Feels a little sad...

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10789416.post-1131367628662456852005-11-07T13:47:00.000+01:002005-11-07T13:47:08.690+01:00

So it finally happened. It was some hard work to move all my stuff and furniture, but my dad, roommate and I handled it quite well. Although all the stuff is still lying around on the floor until I will find the time to store them somewhere, I am ready to start eventually living in Saarbruecken and will be able to host guests. ;) Also I managed to get my Internet to work (and detect some router

marcelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14099810920305393982noreply@blogger.com