And now for something completely different

Enjoying a very special chewing gum

Chicza organic mayan rainforest chewing gum.
Natural latex from Gran Peten in Mexico. Expensive but great. Yum.

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Interesting...Facebook uses SSL 2.0 for login which is disabled in Chrome

Very suspicious.
Is this a new kind of payback in the fight Google vs. Facebook? I could swear it worked perfectly a few weeks ago.
So if you install Google Chrome and try to login you'll only get an error message that your SSL-connection could not be established. You need to go into the preferences "Under the Hood" and activate SSL 2.0 manually.

Wow. Can it get any worse? And why the heck is Facebook using an outdated SSL-encryption?

Snowing, wet streets and low temperature

Nooo, I don't want to go outside.

Finally it's here: Winter. And all the things I like at winter are gone out of my mind, now that the bad things about winter hits me hard. Cold, wet cloths and socks. And I can't even wear an Android-shirt outside *sigh*.

And another set of netcasts are done

Now for some football.

I just bought "Simplify Your Time" as an eBook

I hope this will help me to get some ground against the time running away. You know you do something wrong when a week feels like a day. And that's what happens to me.
I hope this helps.

The buddhists says

Do not indulge in idle talk or gossip. And we do it all day long.

Another icy day and I have to go out of the house

Where is global warming when you need it? :) Just kidding...

Thinking about if I should publish a post about being together naked with friends

I hope this is not too offending for the readers. Hey, no nude pics anyway :)

Trying GPS with the tab in the city

Between 5-10m of accuracy is not that bad. It's in the middle of the city.

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Errata Security: Robert Graham detained by the TSA

It goes worse and worse. I can only hope that every US-citizen stand up against this treating. It's ridiculous, inefficient, inhuman and a direct hit on your freedom rights.
Head over to the article by Robert Graham to read more.

Errata Security: I was just detained by the TSA: "Today, I was detained by the TSA for about 30 minutes for taking pictures while going through security. Taking pictures is perfectly legal.

I took pictures of the 'advanced imaging' machines that see through your clothes – the machines that are the subject of so much controversy lately. I was quickly besieged by TSA agents shouting at me to stop taking pictures. I was then detained while they tried to figure out what to do with me."

A Hackers Gute to Tea from World of Tea

What a great guide. "World of Tea" has a great Hackers Guide to Tea. I found this at Lifehacker. Everything you should know about all sorts od tea, and how it fits in your hacker's life :).
Tea go, coffee no :).

The Hacker’s Guide to Tea [Tea]: "
Coffee gets a lot of attention, but if tea's more your style, tea guru Tony Gebely offers this guide to understanding and brewing better tea—discussing the process, the kinds, and the care necessary to cultivate a great taste for tea.

Understanding Tea: The Quick Version

• All tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. If you are drinking something that did not come from this plant (chamomile, mint, tulsi, rooibos, etc) it is not tea.
• White, Green, Oolong, Yellow, Black and Pu-erh teas all come from the camellia sinensis plant and the type of tea is determined by the processing methods used on the plucked leaves.
• Tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes mental acuity. The combination of L-theanine and caffeine creates a sense of 'mindful awareness.'
• Tea can be prepared in any vessel by steeping the leaves directly in hot water as long as you strain the leaves out of the water before drinking.
• The more oxidized the tea leaves are, the hotter the water temperature should be when steeping.

Understanding Tea: The Long Version

In addition to caffeine, tea contains an amino acid called L-theanine. 'Several studies from Japan and the UK have shown that consumption of 50mg of L-theanine increases alpha wave activity in the brain, with the maximum effect occurring about 80 minutes after consumption. This amount is equivalent to approximately three cups of tea. Alpha waves correspond to a relaxed-but-alert mental state, and believed to be an important part of selective attention (the ability to choose to pay attention to something and avoid distraction by other stimuli)' [source: http://www.teageek.net]. L-theanine in tea produces a type of 'mindful awareness' not evident in coffee. This is what prevents the 3pm 'coffee crash.'



This makes tea an important tool for maintaining mental perspicacity for hours of coding, late night performance, or for getting through those bleak morning hours.

Let's get this out of the way – tea bags suck. Actually, most mainstream tea sucks. Mainstream tea is low quality, blended, and sometimes contains cheap flavorings. There are countless tea shops out there that buy directly from small farmers that produce small crops each season and likely process the tea by hand.

What You Need to Know

• All true tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant [photo above]. White, Green, Oolong, Yellow, Black, and Pu-erh teas all come from this plant.
• Loose tea can be steeped multiple times. Some teas can be re-steeped 20 or more times. The flavor is gradually extracted from the leaves with each subsequent steep.
• When shopping for tea, look for companies that offer information about where the tea is from, how it was processed, who grew it, and most importantly-when the tea was harvested.

Steep It

When steeping the tea, be sure the tea can flow freely through the water, this rules out tea bags, tiny tea infusion baskets, tea balls, etc. Ideally, pour water directly over the tea and then strain before drinking. If you must use an infuser, a large finum strainer [photo left] works nicely and still allows for proper water flow.

Depending on the type of tea you are steeping there are two important variables you must pay attention to: water temperature, and steeping time. I'm assuming you are using good water, as tea is 98% water – using a strong chlorinated water would be a bad idea. In general, hotter water must be used for highly oxidized teas. Remember, you are preparing a drink that you should enjoy, so always take tea instructions with a grain of salt. Experiment often to discover the 'sweet spot' with your teas and remember-a good tea is a forgiving tea. If your tea is bitter, reduce the steeping temperature. If your tea is too weak, increase the amount of tea leaves used or increase the steeping time. Here are some guidelines I send out with orders for Chicago Tea Garden:



It is not necessary to get real serious about the steeping temperatures, for 195, boil water, take it off the stove, and wait about a minute. For 170, wait longer. Remember, experiment often.

If you want to get serious about steeping your tea, use a yixing pot, or a gaiwan. If you need energy, consider drinking matcha - a suspension of powdered tea. You are actually consuming the leaf so the health benefits and energy received from matcha are greater than that in other teas. If you need peace, study the gongfu tea ceremony [pictured here]–-it is a great way to relax so you can enjoy and appreciate the tea.

A fresh tea should have a shelf life of approximately two years, a lightly oxidized tea might become stale quicker. Store your tea away from light, heat air, and any strong scents.

Read

There is a lot of good tea information out there. I highly recommend James Norwood Pratt's New Tea Lover's Treasury and Heiss' Story of Tea. If you prefer an online resource, Michael J Coffey has a valuable wiki of his research here and I've assembled a Google Reader bundle of tea blogs.

Hacker's Guide to Tea [World of Tea]

Tony Gebely is a Chicagoan who has traveled to many tea producing regions and has been studying tea and tea culture for several years. Tony teaches tea courses in Chicago and co-owns Chicago Tea Garden. He also runs World of Tea. If you have any tea related questions he can be found on twitter @WorldofTea.

"
Quoted article from Lifehacker is licensed under a Creative Commons License BY-NC

Geocaching on a bad weather day...again!

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Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - The Big Rant

Pic by belénciaga / CC BY-NC-ND

Yeah, I know it's the movie, not the book. But it's very clear, that there was left out too many things and important stuff.

It was a good movie. Much better than the Half-Blood Prince. Some camera works are questionable though. These "live-action" camera isn't for the cinemas. Wobbling and lagging is for YouTube-Videos, but shouldn't be showed in a cinema. The music is good, but can't reach the Level of the first 3 movies. The dancing scene from Harry and Hermione is ridiculous with that kind of music and looks like it was made to make some money with the Soundtrack or a Single-CD.

I don't want to spoil the book if you didn't read it by now, but there is so much more that was dramatically different. And even more things which has been left out. Partly because the previous movies missed to introduce things or persons, and partly it seems that they just didn't care about certain, important things.
That leads to strange appearances. Like when Hermoine saw a sign in the"Tales of Beedle the Bard" and wondered why this is in a book for children. I could go on for pages.

So all in all it's a good movie. I like it, and I will certainly see it again. But it's not the real Harry Potter.

The characters you saw on the big screen are not the real characters from the books anymore. You do not understand why and what they are doing in the movie if you haven't read the book.
Do yourself a favor and read all of the books before you look at "HP and the deathly Hallows part II". Then you will know what's really going on. But don't read "The Deathy Hallows" without reading the previous books. From the 4rd movie on, there was left out so much, you won't even understand the 7th book anymore. You won't regret it. It gives you the magic you need to understand the movie for real.

Saw the new Harry Potter ATDH

I knew that it's not the class of the book. Big rant follow :)

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Facebook vs. Lamebook... I'm with Lamebook

More fun. I can't believe Facebook does the big censoring. This is LAME!

Lamebook – Funny Facebook Statuses, Fails, LOLs and More – The Original: "Lamebook - from lame to fame
HELP SAVE LAMEBOOK! Please donate to our legal fund here.
Well, Facebook didn't like us sticking up for ourselves, so they shut down our Fan Page, are preventing any users from 'liking' us, and won't even let you share URLs with your friends if they point to Lamebook. In light of this, be sure to follow us on Twitter so you get updated with the latest and funniest of the lame!"

HELP SAVE LAMEBOOK! Please donate to their legal fund here.

Your Own "Reality Distortion Field" How-To

It's easier for ladies, but I think I'll try it :)
I am Ryo. Resitance is futile!

Practice Eye Contact to Generate "Reality Distortion Field" Charisma [Personal Development]: "
Some people, like Bill Clinton and Steve Jobs, have undeniable charisma that even their most ardent detractors are forced to acknowledge. Master the art of eye contact and personal space management to create your own 'Reality Distortion Field' level charisma.
Photo by Lucia Whittaker.

Productivity blog Four Hour Work Week has an interesting guest post by Michael Ellsberg, a researcher and author of the book The Power of Eye Contact. Ellsberg has spent years studying the mannerisms and habits of highly charismatic people such as Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, and other public figures that possess a snake charmer like ability to capture the attention of an individual or an entire audience.

So what constitutes what Ellsberg calls 'Reality Distortion Field' charisma? A mastery of eye contact, personal space management, and maintaining a sense of presence and attention when addressing your audience. How do you get those things? You practice. Ellsberg highlights how to practice making solid eye contact:

While you walk down the sidewalk (during daylight hours!) look at the eyes of every person walking towards you long enough to see their eye color. Less than a second. Then look away. This is the best technique I know for building solid eye contact skills quickly. In my experience, if the eye contact is brief enough, no one minds at all, and you get tons of practice in.

You can also practice longer eye contact with waiters, salesclerks, cashiers, and other paid service staff, so long as you do it respectfully and in a friendly way.

In all cases, keep a neutral facial expression and soft gaze. You don't want anyone to think you're trying to stare them down, rob them, or get them into the sack. If you practice all this for a week or two as you go about your daily business, the quality of your eye contact will become better than most people's, in a short amount of time.

Check out the full article for tips on personal space management and how to practice being present and engaged with your speaker. The article also includes an interesting analysis of how you can succeed and fail with RDF techniques using the Bush/Clinton Town Hall debate from October of 1992 as a model.

How It Works: Clinton's 'Reality Distortion Field' Charisma [Four Hour Work Week]"

Quoted article from Lifehacker is licensed under a Creative Commons License BY-NC

Today it's Potter-Time

I'm curious how they screw the book again in this part. I hope it's better than half-blood prince. I doubt they can go the way the 7th book does. They left too much out. There were so many very important things in the previous movies that were left out completely. Either they come up with characters you never heard of in the movies before, or it will be very different. But in some hours, I will know. Maybe I'll rant about it, later that day :).

Firefox-Bug in Ubuntu 10.04 is extremely annoying

Everytime the screensaver activates itself, you have to go to the preferences and restart the location bar, after reactivating. Or restart Firefox. That's really a big disadvantage.
What, I should use Chrome? It has Chrome to Phone and lots of other goodies? Yes, that's right, but it crashes when blogging on Blogger.com in compose mode and using the

Come on, Mozilla. Please fix this. This bug exists for many month now. It's about time...

TSA resembles crime syndicate

Interesting share from Richard M. Stallman.

TSA resembles crime syndicate: "21 November 2010 (TSA resembles crime syndicate)
The TSA causes more crime than it prevents, and now body scanners and feel-ups are making the American public revolt."

Well another day...

Mails checked, social networks checked, now up for the work: Google Reader

Best Time To Publish Blog Posts?

I think I'll have to address an issue. I'm blogging at quite unusual times. This is found to be very disturbing and often leaves my posting in the dust. Especially if they are related to Twitter or social networks.

So I've decided to change that.
I thought about using this time to post main blog articles:

Weekdays
Best (02.00 UTC) (18:00 PST) (21:00 EST)

Weekends
Best (20.00 UTC) (12:00 PST) (15:00 EST)

What do you think is the best time to publish?

Dobby trending on Twitter? S.P.E.W. ftw!

Now researching and planning for the netcasts tomorrow. Maybe I should talk about Dobby there? Only kidding :)...

Who's Best? Google Chat vs. Skype vs. iChat

Like I said. Now people should use Google Chat (GTalk), too. The best service is worthless, if no one is using it.

Battle of the Video Chat Applications: Google Chat vs. Skype vs. iChat [Video]: "
Gizmodo's done their own tests of FaceTime on the Mac, but what about other video chat applications? We took a look at three of the most popular desktop apps to see how they fared against one another.
Video chat's been around for awhile, but we've never really compared the quality of today's popular apps. And, what with Skype's newest beta being released and Google adding an enhanced video plugin to Gmail Labs, we thought it was time to see how they stack up. Check out the video to see our testing results, and read on to get some general notes on what we found. Note that all tests were performed on my Hackintosh in OS X (and with Adam's Hackintosh in OS X on the receiving end).

Best in Class: Google Chat

Google chat was surprisingly the best of the three (iChat coming in pretty closely). Despite its being a webapp, it works remarkably well—the enhanced video plugin in Gmail Labs provided remarkably good video, and the audio came in very clear—by far the best of the three. Full screen it didn't lose any quality, either, and the integration with Google is always nice, since you don't have to download a separate app or create a new account to use it.

Skype

Skype gave us all sorts of problems. You'll remember our most recent test of Skype's 10-way calling (which was not so great), but two-way calling wasn't much better. The video was fantastic—probably the best of the three—but the audio was so horrible that it was almost an immediate deal-killer. Even turning down our volume, talking through Skype sounded like you were in a well or something, and when we talked at the same time Skype overcompensated a bit too much by ducking one of us out to the point where it was almost inaudible.

Note that due to a lack of communication between me and Adam I tested both the stable version and the newest beta, and it was not a beta issue—Skype really did have the worst audio. And, while it doesn't really have anything to do with the quality of the video call, the newest version of Skype is really going down the tubes, UI-wise—and many of you noted in the comments of our last post that you agree. Plus, of course, you have to create an entirely new account and download a new program—not ideal if you already have something on your computer that works.

iChat

We decided to test out iChat at the last minute, since it's pretty popular among Mac users. It was nearly on par with Google Chat—the video was pretty high quality, and while the audio seemed a bit off (it sounded like Adam was far away from the microphone when he talked), it was very usable. Obviously, its only downside is that it's Mac only—but since it was really meant for desktop video chatting we chose to test it over FaceTime. However, if all parties involved have a Mac, it's a great way to go, especially if you're doing three-way video calling. Also, you can video chat from the Moon if you so choose. Google Chat can't do that.

---

Of course, these were just a series of tests that Adam and I performed over the course of the day. Your experience may differ, so if you find that you're really a diehard Skype fan, or you just find Google Chat to be completely lacking in the quality department, let us know in the comments!"

Quoted article from Lifehacker is licensed under a Creative Commons License BY-NC

US Transportation Secretary About To Blocking Cellphones In Cars?

5000 road deaths?
Wait, let's see what causes more death:
Talking to a real passenger, smoking in the car, fiddling with the stereo, driving back tired from work...
How about restrict this all? Hey, even better, why don't make cars illegal completely? So know one can die in a car accident.

US Transportation Secretary Explores the Idea of Blocking Cellphones in All Cars [Cellphones]: "

Could 5,000 road deaths be avoided each year if the motoring industry were forced to put cellphone-blocking equipment in every car? More »





"

Quoted article from Gizmodo is licensed under a Creative Commons License BY-NC.

Friday... It's Friday... Again!

Can someone please make the time go slower? It feels faster and faster. A week feels like 1 day.

Just saw a blurred house on Street View and the unblurred Panoramio pic. Cool.

I hate those pixelbombers. Good that there is still free photography and the right to make panorama-shots.

Garmin has replaced my GPSr in 2 days. Great service.

That's what I call service. Quick and without problems. For free. The protection around the receiver came off. The glue couldn't hold it anymore. I called and the sent me a number via email. After sending it in, it took only 2 days before a brand new GPS device arrived.
Thanks Garmin!

#Geocaching in the woods today.

Some height and bad weather. Well, can't be always perfect.

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Can Twitter Make You Smarter?

If you ask me, it depends on who you follow :), But a new study really thought about it.

Can Twitter Make You Smarter? [Twitter]: "

Can using Twitter make you smarter? A new semester-long study found that college students who used Twitter for educational purposes earned GPAs a half-point higher than a non-tweeting control group. More »

Quoted article from Gizmodo is licensed under a Creative Commons License BY-NC.

Typical me...

You know. I knew it. I bought the Galaxy Tab one week ago and now I saw it for 79€ and 2 year contract for 29.95€. Well, I pay 39.95€ per month and paid 149€. The only thing that keeps me from crying is: I have 5 gigs included before the cap hits me with max. 64kbit/sec. And until that I have HSDPA+ with 7.2mbit/sec.
With this 29.95 contract there is no data included at all.
But still, it's so typical me :)
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Lord Of The Rings Online For Free Now - First View

It took some time, but now it's finally here. You know the Lord Of The Rings MMORPG? Now it's free to play.

I've got my first impression at the Gamescom 2010, and it was horrible. So I'm very skeptical about that game. The graphics there where so ugly, I couldn't believe it. This turned out to be problem with the PC there.  It looks much better on mine.

But still the graphic is not up to the latest standards. The textures are blurry and not their edges are often too hard. So it doesn't fit when textures are changing in the game world, like on the ground e.g. Snow is cut in like a razor blade.

I haven't verified the story, but it seems to fit into the universe of the books. All main races and classes are available. No Ents :).
You have loads of possible things to improve, and a massive amount of equipment. This is a good thing for long-term gaming. But it's kind of frustrating if you just play for fun.

What's new now? Why do I write about it? It an old game.
Well, now it's free. No monthly costs. However, you can pay monthly for a VIP-account. And here we go. It will be a 2 class game. The one who are paying and the freebies. I already see threads in the forum, where people asking other players about problems, and they just play the stupid, because they don't pay. I'll have to see how that effects in-game play. What can you do more with a VIP-account, do you need to buy things like in Runes Of Magic? That's what I don't like about free2play MMOs. They pretend to be free, but in everyday use, you're prey without buying stuff.  I don't know if this is the case with Lord Of The Rings, I need more time to play to a higher level, where normally the problem begins.

If you like the "Lord", you definitely should try it. It's a hefty ~10GB download. Beware, it installs "Pando Media Booster" to download. Another problem with free2play games. I don't like p2p clients getting installed to download and play the game. Those tools can cause problems with your internet speed in some special cases. You can uninstall "Pando Media Booster" after the installation, but I couldn't check if this is needed for downloading updates when starting the game-client. So be careful or reinstall "Pando Media Booster".

Now I'm playing a little more. I'll let you know about it. Just check my lifestream here from time to time and you might find more updated than you want :)

Relaxing...

What's better then watching football after finishing the netcasts? Very curious situation with Brad Childress.

All right then... I'm out of here.

Watching some college football, reading a bit "Lord of The Rings" (the ebook-version is great) and then the day is gone again.

80% Of YouTube Videos Are Now Available In WebM

This is a great step forward for the free WebM-Codec.
According to GigaOM, YouTube already made 80% of the videos available in WebM.

Now what the free video-codec needs is a massive PR-event. It has potential, but with all the competition bashing WebM, it will be a tough go without heavy advertising.

Source: GigaOM

Social-Services Everywhere... Here Is My Own

...and it's called my blog! Well okay, not really, but almost.
Why not using my blog to post status-updates? I've thought about it before and was undecided about. Now I think it's time to do it, as another social networks comes into my little universe. Facebook.
Again I'm facing the problem of possible echos and double postings. And again the obvious solution would to blog everything, even small status-updates and aggregate them into the social networks. So everyone can follow where they like to, and not being forced to use the same network I'm momentarily favoring (as if anyone would do that :) ).
In addition I have my own little library with all the stuff I put out. What remains is the weird thing that you can do on social networks with no one seems to care: Citing complete articles, so-called sharing. If this is done on a blog, this is not so widely accepted. I don't see a difference there.
However, that means overall, less citing, more clicking for you. But I also read a lot of good sources that publishes under a free license like the Creative Commons License. These articles will be cited with the necessary source attributions, and receiving a big hand of a paws for their openness.

What does this means for that blog?
More posts. Much more posts. Many of them very short. But it remains the place where I write my big articles,too. You already might know, that Android-stuff, Anime and Japan related things, and posts about the free video scene are having their own places. Take a look at the header of the site :).

That means in short, this blog will be a lifestream from now on.
I hope you keep checking the entries here. But you can get all status-updates over Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz if you prefer.

And yes, I will read and answer the comments on any of those networks. You can be sure. So the interaction is where YOU want it to be.

Have fun!

Society Needs To Change For New Technologies

You can run, but you can't hide!

I'm thinking about this for quite a while now. Today I read a post from Mahendra Palsule about "super-logoff" and "white-walling" (check articles [1],[2] ) on Facebook. I think this is a terrible mistake, and here is why.

Like it or not, tech stuff is evolving very fast. It changes our lives. Has always done. Remember the time without TV? Maybe not. Maybe you will see it in your lifetime. It comes and goes as tech moves forward. The social networks will not last forever, but it will evolve in something other. And it's moving fast. Too fast for our society. We have many problems, and it will get worse.

But how can we protect us from having negative effects from all this stuff? By finding ways to hide our stuff? By obscuring our activity? From being an non-existent when we log off? I don't think so. Now we can try it, but soon, mabye very soon, this isn't possible anymore. As a teen, or if your social accounts are not so important, this might work for now. But this is like, driving a car, and if you come home, you remove your tires from the vehicle in case someone wants to steel it. In addition, we might have to use this or similar services in the future, where you can't simply go out without being isolated. Yeah 20 years ago you couldn't live without a TV in a modern society. In maybe 10-15 years you can't live without your social presence on the web.

Lets use this stressed example: You post your drunken pictures on the web and going to a job-interview. The boss is checking your social activities and say "Nope". Who did wrong here? You for posting the truth that you were young and party on as almost anyone did, or the boss you blame you for things he probably did, too? That's the point of it. We need to go public and change the old remnant of the past. We must get this new thinking, or we will be overwhelmed by the new technologies that WILL come. We can't stop it, even if we wanted to. But we don't want to stop it, because it gives us much more freedom. When it's normal that there might be some weird stuff about you on the internet, than you won't get negative responses from this. People in all classes need to realize, no, to accept, that it is what it is.

Like Jeff Jarvis stressed so often in his articles. Go public! It's your damn right. Time is on your side. You still can hide your secrets. But you can't hide your existence. Welcome to the new world.

Mutual

Mutual: ""

This work from XKCD.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

No Facebook-Phone, But A Facebook World

Everyone's sad now? Everyone deluded, and down on the ground, whining and hammering with their hands on the floor? No need to, says Rob Jackson from Phandroid.

Facebook is about to set the marks for location-based social networking and shopping. Instead of pulling their own phone out of the hat, and get possibly attacked by every phone hardware company, they want to be on all of them. It's only logical. Facebook doesn't do hardware.

Check the extensive article on Phandroid. It's worth it, if you can keep your pulse below 160 and stop whining :)

How To Upload A WebM-Video on YouTube

There is a nice and easy Wikipage on how to upload a video to YouTube and ensure it is viewable in WebM.

Go to: WebM recipe - LibrePlanet