Nil Desperandum

Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past

2009-06-22T00:44:00.000-07:00

Watched the movie "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" ("Womanizer" in German (?)) on the weekend, together with my wife. Most memorable are some quotes from Michael Douglas' character "Uncle Wayne", like that one (at a men's restroom):

"Whoa! Never touch a man while he's hanging a wire."

And of course another historical misinformation I noticed. The bride's father, "Sarge" (an ex-Marine), mentions something along the line that "the Korean War caused more American casualties than Vietnam", which is of course not true. Korea ranks #4 behind WW2 (#1), WW1 (#2) and Vietnam (#3) (and that only considering international conflicts, so this excludes the American Civil War). I whispered to my wife immediately, she nodded. She knows me well.

TV-Guide Descriptions Of History Movies

2008-12-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

Hollywood movies on world history events are often criticized for their historic inaccuracies. Many of those inaccuracies, at least when they are of a minor kind, are fine for me as long as it's clear they are intended for some good reason, e.g. a better storyline.

I noticed that kind of criticism lately in Austria's most widespread tv-guide. "Director A did this wrong, Director B did not adhere to historic facts", and so on. Which is kind of ironic, given the fact the same tv-guide tends to mess up facts as well. Major facts. And they do so without any logical reason.

Two recent examples:

Movie "The Gladiator" (2000): The tv-guide's movie description referred to the battle scene at the beginning as "Battle of the Teutoburg Forest". But the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (AKA "Varusschlacht" in German) took place in the 9 A.D. when Augustus was emperor. Marcus Aurelius, the dying emperor in "Gladiator", reigned from 161 A.D. to 180 A.D., and was involved in the so-called Marcomannic Wars at this time (he actually died in the city of Vindobona, today's Vienna). The movie at no point mentions the Teutoburg Forest.

Movie "Alexander" (2004): Here they talked about Anthony Hopkin's role as Ptolemy, and state that "he was Alexander the Great's teacher". That's nonsense. As everyone and his sister knows, Aristotle was Alexander's teacher, a fact that is shown and repeated several times during the movie (Christopher Plummer plays Aristotle). Ptolemy was a childhood friend, then one of Alexander's most capable generals, and ended up being Pharao in Egypt in the political and military turmoil following Alexander's death. This was the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, with Cleopatra among its most famous members.

Yeah, Right

2008-11-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

(Isaac Asimov)

Philosophy Podcasts

2008-10-28T22:18:00.000-07:00

My passion for history is a means of ensuring a kind of healthy work-life-balance, a distraction from my daytime job in software development. I am doing a lot of reading on history, podcast listening, plus I visit museums and watch TV documentaries.

However I decided I needed a second branch of interest so that not all of my sparetime gets soaked up by musing on the importance of the cavalry in Napoleon's Russian campaign or stuff like that.

I did some basic reading on philosophy several years ago, and I am planning to continue on that trail. Here are several great philosophy podcasts that I recently started to listen to on a regular basis:

See How Fast You Can Type!

2008-08-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

I don't consider myself to be a good typist. I am not really very fast, and what's worse I often make mistakes, most of the time swapping adjoined characters (I am sure there must be a mental or fine-motoric explanation for that ;-) ). Furthermore I need to gaze at the keyboard every 10 seconds or so - maybe just to calibrate my fingers on the keys, I don't know.

So what I do is trying to compensate for those shortcomings by applying as many keyboard shortcuts as possible when coding, which probably makes me gain some time again.

It's funny because I had taken typing classes back at school (those were the days of electronic typewriters), but for one reason or another did not apply the ten-finger system when writing code for the first several years (I'd rather call it some kind of 6-finger freestyle ;-) ). This seemed ridiculous after a while so I bought one of those typing tutor software packages and relearned how the ten-finger system worked on a PC in the mid-90s.

But hey, I just scored 363 characters per minute on this speed typing test. I candidly admit I had one advantage though: Being a history buff I recognized the predefined text (Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address).

Famous Birthdays

2007-11-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

My son Thomas was born one week ago, on November 21st. We are very happy and grateful he is doing fine. And thanks for all the well-wishing.

As he is giving my wife and me a little break right now, I did a quick search on which famous people share the same birthday with him. For November 21st the most admissible to me seems to be Voltaire.

For my older son Alexander's birthday (August 6th) it would be his namesake Alexander Fleming.

And finally regarding my birthday, December 26th, all I came up with first was Mao Zedong, who was born in 1893. Gulp. I had to dig further.

Luckily I found a much more admirable celebrity, and at the same time a founding-father of my profession: Charles Babbage.

Yep, that's definitely better. ;-)

Linux Is Love

2007-04-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Personally I feel quite indifferent when it comes to preferences for operating systems. E.g. I do most development work under Windows, but our J2EE server solutions run on Red Hat. I have to deal with the respective OS APIs at times (and I appreciate both of them), but I care more about programming languages, framework libraries and IDEs.

My son Alexander though seems to favor Linux, which may be due to the fact that Tux is such a cute mascot.

Programmer Personality Test

2007-03-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here is my result from the Programmer Personality Test (disclaimer: far too few questions and nuances, not to be taken serious):

Your programmer personality type is:

DLSC

You're a Doer.
You are very quick at getting tasks done. You believe the outcome is the most important part of a task and the faster you can reach that outcome the better. After all, time is money.

You like coding at a Low level.
You're from the old school of programming and believe that you should have an intimate relationship with the computer. You don't mind juggling registers around and spending hours getting a 5% performance increase in an algorithm.

You work best in a Solo situation.
The best way to program is by yourself. There's no communication problems, you know every part of the code allowing you to write the best programs possible.

You are a Conservative programmer.
The less code you write, the less chance there is of it containing a bug. You write short and to the point code that gets the job done efficiently.

Give Them Nothing, But Take From Them Everything

2007-02-12T01:45:00.000-08:00

As some of you might know, I am a history buff. And I enjoy watching fantasy movies, so when those two things coincide, that's just my cup of tea.

Hollywood has recently rediscovered ancient Greece. I saw Alexander as well as Troy two or three years ago. And I agree, those were not the best of their kind ("Alexander The Great" with Richard Burton back from the 1950s is way better), their makers didn't care too much about the real historical background (the Trojan War as described in Homer's Iliad is at least partly legendary of course), but then again they never claimed to do so.

The latter is also true for the dream factory's latest artefact, "300" (the movie), which refers to the Battle of Thermopylae, when 300 Spartans under king Leonidas fought the Persian invasion army lead by their emperor Xerxes at the mountain pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC. The movie's artwork is based on Frank Miller's graphical novel of the same name.

I first saw the trailer back in November and its visual force simply blew me away, especially when combined with the background music by Nine Inch Nails. Again, let's not nit-pick about historical facts (e.g. there were several thousand Greek allies, not just 300 Spartans) - it's a novel after all. The movie also seems to mash in elements of Greek mythology, so there are appearances of cyclope-like creatures and similar characters.

I also noticed a scene where a Persian ambassador is thrown into a well by Leonidas. This goes back to the Persian tradition of demanding "earth and water" from their subordinates' soil as a symbol for accepting Persian domination on land and on sea. So the Spartans pitched them into the well and told them to go and look for earth and water down there. Now that's what I call coolness.

Matrix Twins

2006-12-02T21:00:00.000-08:00

Some folks here provided their charity event promotion with some special Christmas eye candy:

There was something about those two. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I expect every Christmas angel to look baroquesque. It was just this vague sense of having seen them before...

My Favorite Non-Tech Podcasts

2006-09-06T23:55:00.000-07:00

History According To Bob	Homepage	Feed
Matt's Today in History	Homepage	Feed
Military History Podcast	Homepage	Feed
European Civilization from the Renaissance to the Present	Homepage	Feed
US History: From Civil War to Present	Homepage	Feed
General Biology	Homepage	Feed
Evolution 101 Podcast	Homepage	Feed
The Big Bang and Creationism Podcast	Homepage	Feed
Physics For Future Presidents	Homepage	Feed
Stanford Philosophy Talk	Homepage	Feed
WDR Zeitzeichen (german)	Homepage	Feed
FM4 Off Air (german)	Homepage	Feed

Off To Rome

2006-06-29T00:30:00.000-07:00

I am heading to Rome tomorrow, so please forgive the lack of new postings during the next days. I expect the city to be dead on my arrival as Italy will be playing against Ukraine in the soccer world cup at that time. Forza Italia!

The Big Bang And Creationism Podcast

2006-06-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

Robert Lippens provides a scientific discussion of the big bang, inflationary theory, and general cosmology and takes a close look at creationism's conflicting views. I am still trying to catch up with all podcast episodes from the start - very interesting material. I am quite impressed - I don't think I would have been able to come up with something at this level as Robert does at the age of 17... and of course I also got caught by the theme music of "The good, the bad, and the ugly" at the beginning of the first episode. Now that was a movie I was watching frequently back when I was 17. ;-)

What's Your EQ (Entrepreneurial Quotient)?

2006-03-20T14:13:00.000-08:00

I seem to score higher on geek tests than on entrepreneur tests, so I guess I'd rather stick with what I am doing already... ;-)

Guy Kawasaki's Entrepreneurial IQ Test

You scored 70-89%!

Guy Kawasaki was Apple's legendary Mac evangelist.

Alexander's First Textfile

2006-01-31T00:45:00.000-08:00

My son Alexander was five months old when he typed the following:

0#
ä

äppppppppppppppijjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj8j9
kiikkoooooooooooooooooooooooo
kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.....insddmsäs
xyCCCCCCCCCCYXX

ÄÖÖÖÖÖ

N

OK, it's not "Me Thinks It Is Like A Weasel", but not bad either for a start. E.g. note the root shell prompt at the beginning.

Of course I had to preserve the text for ensuing ages. ;-)

My Computer Savviness

2005-12-07T04:26:00.000-08:00

Naturalism Vs. Intelligent Design

2005-12-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

I just finished John Lennox' book "Has science buried god?" (in which he points out that the existence of our universe in its very shape is so unlikely to happen, it can impossibly have emerged coincidently), and I am now continuing my philosophical reading journey with his Darwinian counterpart Richard Dawkins ("The blind watchmaker"). Both excellently written and argued, it's somehow funny I even notice myself at times sympathizing with some of Lennox' ideas, even though I tend to disagree with his approach as a whole. There is a reason for this phenomenon: human thinking is not very well suited to grasp the magnitudes neither of the time horizon involved, nor of the number of places that could potentially allow life to emerge. To many people it just seems so unlikely for self-reproducing DNA/RNA to come into existence without a higher-level concept behind. But multiply that tiny tiny probability with the amount of time available (something like a billion years) and the number of planets in the universe (we can quite safely assume billions of billions of planets), it suddenly doesn't seem that unlikely at all.

Now this might not the right place for an in-depth metaphysical discussion, still it's interesting to note that about 40% or all Austrians believe in creationism or intelligent design, while another 40% have a pure naturalistic world view, with 20% indetermined (opposed to the US, where it's 80% creationists and 15% naturalists - of course I am oversimplifying here by dividing up only those two camps, but you get the point).

More people than I would have expected still stick to old-testamental genesis, something that has clearly been confuted by science nearly 150 years ago. Even the catholic church has taken a neutral position on evolution since the early 1950's.

The whole dispute just shows the dilemma we are all facing when it comes to issues that generally cannot really be proven by our usual approaches. There was a big bang, yes, which was caused by the concentration of matter, space and time in one singularity. At that point humans tend to search for the previous element in the cause-and-effect chain, but in this case there might not be anything previous. As of what came before, without matter there is no concept of time. And without time there is no "before", and there is no "cause and effect".

I consider myself a rational person, so that's what should guide me. I am quite convinced we are nothing but stardust. Still, a local newspaper article quoted a famous German journalist and TV host just the other day: "There are no atheists on an airplane during heavy turbulence". It seems inherently human to look for something that goes beyond logical reasoning. What's surprising is that there are even many top-notch astronomers who do believe in god. Is it just the fear of being alone in this universe and having to find sense in life without guidance from above? Or is rationalism simply not very well suited to answer this kind of questions?

What Star Wars Jedi Or Sith Character Is Most Like Your Personality?

2005-11-07T04:23:00.000-08:00

You scored as Darth Revan. You are most like Darth Revan. Revan was considered charismatic, confident and a brilliant strategist who bore a strong connection with The Force. Though he fell to the Dark Side, due to several specific actions he undertook as the Dark Lord, some speculate he became the galaxy's greatest villain to protect the Republic from a powerful Sith empire thought long extinct.

You train in the lightsaber form Niman X which executes usage of dual lightsabers, an unorthodox style that while difficult to master can easily throw off many opponents.

Whether Jedi or Sith, your actions were influential.

Darth Revan

75%

Anakin Skywalker

71%

Bastila Shan

71%

Darth Vader

71%

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Pre Death of Qui-Gon Jinn)

68%

Mace Windu

68%

Exar Kun

68%

Darth Maul

64%

Luke Skywalker

54%

Qui-Gon Jinn

50%

Yoda

50%

Darth Sidious

50%

Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus

50%

Obi-Wan Kenobi (Post Death of Qui-Gon Jinn)

50%

What Star Wars Jedi or Sith character is most like your personality?

The Meaning Of Life

2005-09-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

Achievement-oriented people often experience a weird kind of emptiness shortly after they reach their goals. As Tom Landry, former head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, once put it:

"Even after you've just won the Super Bowl -- especially after you've just won the Super Bowl -- there's always next year. If "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing," then "the only thing" is nothing -- emptiness, the nightmare of life without ultimate meaning."

I have never won the Super Bowl, but one of the small victories in my life was when I finished my second university degree. I was already working full time by then, so I had to sacrifice many evenings, weekends and most of my vacations for studying. After my final exam, I was satisfied and happy - for an hour or two. Then suddenly a sense of complete emptiness overwhelmed me. The goal which had fulfilled me before, it suddenly was gone. It took me several days of exploring new objectives, some at work, some regarding my personal life, until that feeling was gone again.

Still, just setting the next goal is only going circumvent the problem momentarily. On the long term it's a mistake to define the meaning of life by such one-dimensional purposes that will be accomplished sooner or later.

Alexander's Arrival

2005-08-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

Our son Alexander was born on August 6th, 08:19pm. Baby and Mom are doing great. Thanks for the best wishes, and the two baby-geek bodies. It might take a while until they fit, though... ;-)

"There is nothing impossible to him who will try."
Alexander The Great

What Is Your World View?

2005-07-10T23:21:00.000-07:00

You scored as Existentialist. Existentialism emphasizes human capability. There is no greater power interfering with life and thus it is up to us to make things happen. Sometimes considered a negative and depressing world view, your optimism towards human accomplishment is immense. Mankind is condemned to be free and must accept the responsibility.

Existentialist

81%

Cultural Creative

81%

Idealist

69%

Modernist

63%

Materialist

63%

Postmodernist

50%

Romanticist

44%

Fundamentalist

25%

What is Your World View?

What Famous Leader Are You?

2005-06-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

What Video Game Character Are You?

2005-06-01T13:34:00.000-07:00

What Matrix Persona Are You?

2005-01-13T14:21:00.000-08:00

You are Agent Smith, from "The Matrix."

Ruthless. Efficient. Deadly. Seems you have a problem with authority. No one would ever want to run into you in a dark alley. Cold as steel, tough as a rock, things are your way or the highway.

Visionary Philosopher

2004-11-21T13:32:00.000-08:00

According to the notorious Tickle IQ Test, I am a Visionary Philosopher. I am not sure what that means (they charge for a detailed review), but it sounds cool enough.

No, I will not post my exact result here. But I scored higher than my sister (also a Visionary Philosopher), and that was my primary goal. ;-)

I am not taking this kind of IQ tests for serious. Most questions seem to follow a similar pattern. 90% are trivial to answer, and I think the rest (three or four harder ones) won't help to differentiate the results sufficiently.

It's still fun to do the test though. And they have more, e.g. one can reveal his subconcious mind with Tickle's Inkblot Test (AKA Rorschach Test).

Which File Extension Are You?

2004-11-06T13:31:00.000-08:00

Which File Extension are You?

Revenge Of The Sith / Teaser Trailer

2004-11-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

The first Episode 3 trailer has only been available to starwars.com hyperspace members so far. Starting yesterday the trailer became available on free TV (first in the US). Today 8:13pm CET is the first chance for viewers over here, namely on German station Pro7.

Update: Pro7 Austria did not show it! Luckily the trailer available on the net already. Most download locations seem to be under heavy load right now, but the one at RealNetworks (RealPlayer required) worked for me.

Which Operating System Are You?

2004-11-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

Which Operating System Are You?