Archive for September, 2003

Significant growth in Linux share.

Tuesday, September 30th, 2003

Hear, hear: in the course of the last weeks my web server log service (SiteMeter) reports a growing amount of visitors using Linux… How could that be? ;-)

Neuer Report des Deutschlandfunks.

Friday, September 26th, 2003

Gestern hat der Deutschlandfunk einen neuen Teil des Features über das Graduiertenkolleg (bzw. das ‘Doktoranden-Camp’) gesendet. Unter dem Titel Stress im Doktoranden-Camp wird über die neuesten Entwicklungen im Kolleg berichtet. Leider habe ich die Benachrichtigung über den Sendetermin erst zu spät bekommen und konnte den Live-Stream der Sendung nicht mehr aufzeichnen.

That was quite a bit of work.

Wednesday, September 24th, 2003

A few minutes ago I put the new official website of my post-graduate college online. Take a look – I hope you like it. If have a moment of spare time you could check the site with different browsers and tell me if you encounter particular problems. One disclaimer: the layout does not work well with 4.x versions of Netscape. I would recommend updating to a browser using the Gecko engine, i.e. a Mozilla related browser.

Nerve wracking and exhausting.

Wednesday, September 24th, 2003

I have to tell you that even if you’re only the friend not the person affected, job interviews can be really exhausting. I’m almost down and out from the last days. Wouldn’t want to be in Kerstin’s shoes…

Neue Sendung im Deutschlandfunk in den nächsten Tagen.

Sunday, September 21st, 2003

Unser Reporter und Begleiter, der Journalist Ludger Fittkau, hat den Kollegiaten mitgeteilt, dass die nächste Sendung des DLF dieser Tage, voraussichtlich am Montag ausgestrahlt wird. Ich werde den genauen Sendetermin hier posten, sobald ich ihn weiß. Hier noch einmal der Link zur vergangenen Sendung “Besuch im Doktoranden-Camp“.

I will get better again.

Sunday, September 21st, 2003

Sorry about the lack of updates to my blog during the last two weeks. Updates will come out more regularly as the start of the next semester draws closer, weather gets worse again and I reduce the online gaming time with Neverwinter Nights.

New homepage for the Graduiertenkolleg.

Tuesday, September 16th, 2003

Soon I will change the layout of our post-graduate college’s homepage – it is utterly ugly and confusing now. You should take a look and try to navigate a bit. It’s embarassing. I hope you’ll like the new layout: it will have no tables, it will be W3C conform, more accessible for handicapped people, no frames – but, it doesn’t work well with Netscape 4.x …
A test page will go online in a few days, I would appreciate any feedback then.

Easier than expected.

Tuesday, September 16th, 2003

A few days ago I contacted the DB AG (German railway) with regards to my study; asking them for permission to do my observations, take photographs and record video. I sent them an e-mail expecting to wait a while for a response and having to re-adress somebody else in the DB hierarchy… However, next morning somebody tried to call me via phone and after being unsuccessful sent me an e-mail asking me to get back to him the following day. I did, and it was a brief and professional question answer interaction with the result that I will get written permission for all the things that I wanted to do for all the respective stations I want to look at. I am even allowed to make recordings in the ticket sale areas (these are owned/managed by DB Reise&Touristik, the stations belong to Station&Service. Thank you Deutsche Bahn. This was very helpful for me. Now the real work can begin!

Neverwinternightabsorbiert

Wednesday, September 10th, 2003

Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,
ich wollte nur kurz mitteilen, dass Lars hier anscheinend nichts mehr Neues schreibt, weil er ununterbrochen seit Tagen schon vollkommen in der virtuellen Realität gefangen ist und dort neue Freundinnen und Freunde gefunden zu haben scheint, mit denen er spricht, Geschenke austauscht und sich verabredet. Also los, wer von Euch vermag ihn zu befreien?

Exploring the online realm.

Monday, September 8th, 2003

Yesterday I played Neverwinter Nights for the first time on an online, guild hosted server. It has been a very good and interesting experience. People there (there are usually about 3-10 people online in the setting I am playing in) are quite eloquent, funny and charming. Of course they are, because they are all Mac users! The guild (the Avengers of Coramir) recruits itself from the Mac Neverwinter Nights forum, where I have lurked for the last year or so.

If anything virtually interesting happens, I’ll inform you through the virtual hyperspace. Allez les Internautes!

Could it be better?

Friday, September 5th, 2003

It took me a while but now I have seen 8 Mile, directed by Curtis Hanson (who also directed Wonder Boys and L.A. Confidential) and featuring Eminem. I was positively surprised by the funny and witty dialogues. Luckily, there are no special effects and stuff like that – instead it’s a good story with good characters and, of course, lots of good music. Even if you’re not into HipHop or Eminem you could like the soundtrack. There is room for passion and some sex (‘we’ have Kim Basinger and a really gorgeous Taryn Manning in this movie). Fans of sports movies can breathe the same exhilaration they experience before and in Rocky’s final fights when Eminem enters the stage for rap battles against the bad guys. The ending is quite open and un-Hollywoodesque. I definitely recommend this movie, even if the user rating on IMDb is only 6.9 of 10. Check out the trailer.

Mehr Deutschlandfunk – dieses Mal sogar mit Online Portrait.

Friday, September 5th, 2003

Der Deutschlandfunk hat auf seiner Campus&Karriere Seite eine Vorschau auf die Sendung vom Vergangenen Samstag gestellt. Da gibt es auch ein Portrait von mir. Schon komisch… bin natürlich stolz drauf, aber etwas unwohl ist mir dabei auch.
Leider gibt es da keinen Link zun Anhören des Features vom vergangenen Samstag; falls jemand die Sendung aufgezeichnet hat: Bitte sagt mir Bescheid!

musste den Eintrag noch mal ändern, da ich vergessen hatte, dass “&” in Campus&Karriere zu kodieren… so geht’s ja schließlich nicht!

Could have been sooo much better.

Thursday, September 4th, 2003

Yesterday we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (deutsch: Fluch der Karibik) with a party of seven people. It has a great, gorgeous, wonderful introductory scene for Johnny Depp – if your character is introduced with such a good scence once in your career as an actor, you can be very proud. All in all, Johnny Depp’s character, Captain Jack Sparrow, is what makes this movie live. Without him, there’s not much ado. I sorely missed drama, romance, fear and anger. The movie remains pretty shallow 95% of the time: If dramatic situations arise, Walt Disneyesque solutions are presented. By this I mean that a potential crisis is usually resolved by resorting to bland comedy, using flat jokes and effects. It’s a pity. I am sorry to report that the ending is not very convincing – I did really identify with many of the characters, I would have been ready for great romance, a cliff hanger, anything. *sigh* Nonetheless: I liked many of the gorgeous pictures and ideas in this movie and if you like the genre, if you like Johnny Depp or Legolas a.k.a Orlando Bloom then: watch it and enjoy. Check out the trailer.

I like it.

Thursday, September 4th, 2003

The worst part of the declining temperatures is the growing anxiety which I feel before turning on the cold water in the shower. *brrr* But otherwise it’s great: I can wear my favorite jacket again, we had some gorgeous rainbows over the last few days and sleeping is even more attractive.

Zwischenbericht jetzt online.

Thursday, September 4th, 2003

Mittlerweile bin ich hochzufrieden mit meinen HTML-Vorlagen – das Einarbeiten neuer Texte geht recht flott. Viel Spaß beim Lesen.

Habe die URL ganz vergessen… peinlich. http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~frers/dissbericht.html