0x2a: Category english

Hi there.

map — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:47:00 +0200

I just remembered that I haven't posted here in a while, so just a few pointers on why that is and where I can be observed more frequently.

There are two main reasons for this place being as ghost-towny as it is: First, I feel it is not smart to share my thoughts about most things that matter here, as they might fall back on my company. We are just two guys writing software, and some people have a hard time recognizing this as a private space. There's nothing wrong with alienating people, if you ask me, btw. This just isn't the right place. Second reason is of course, Twitter, which kills small blog posts (and kittens, so I hear) every time you log in.

So whereto? I might still post software hacks and related stuff here, but "the main hub" aggregating my stuff at the moment is emonk.net. But please, remember that's a private site and you shouldn't go there if you are easily offended.

Feline odontoclastic resorptive lesion

map — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:48:29 +0100

This is not the usual "look at this stupid/nice hack right here" post, nor is it a snarky slightly anti-theistic essay. It is however both, important and cat content, so it's a great fit for a blog in general.

Recently my cat has been diagnosed with feline odontoclastic resorptive lesions, or FORL for short. FORL basically means that the cat's very own cells that usually are responsible for resolving milk tooth roots go postal and begin to resolve healthy teeth.

It's quite easy to imagine that this sucks, big time. The root dissolves while the nerve is still alive, i.e. it. fucking. hurts. All the time.

FORL isn't easily detected, as the tooth seems to be healthy from the outside and only a slight redding of the gum can be seen. The cat also has a hard time articulating the pain, so usually the teeth break and fall out before anything is diagnosed.

72% of all cats over 5 years develop FORL. Yes, that's seventy-fucking-two percent. Modern veterinary science is still not sure what causes FORL and usually the only sensible treatment is extraction of the afflicted teeth.

So what I'm trying to say, if you have a cat, please get him or her checked for FORL at your vet. The cat could be in hellish pain without you knowing or noticing.

Where in the world is my iPhone?

map — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:56:19 +0100

Time for another holiday iPhone hack. This time: Tracking my location using an iPhone and Google's myLocation feature.

After finding a bit of C# sample code for the (unfortunatly still private) API, it didn't take very long until I had a iPhone command line tool that reads the current cell information, sends it to Google, gets back the corresponding latitude and longitude and sends that to my server. Schedule it to do so every five minutes using launchd et voilà:

Meshing private APIs can be major fun. In the long term I'd like to have the tool publish the information using Jabber PEP stuff, but for now this works great for a hack. Only bummer is that the phone seems to suspend nearly everything (including launchd) when it goes into lock mode with no sound playing.

The accuracy is pretty good, considering I'm not doing any triangulation yet, but just picking the nearest cell. Also of note: This was probably the first time I had to drive somewhere for effective beta testing. ;)

Where in the world is my iPhone?

map — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:56:19 +0100

Time for another holiday iPhone hack. This time: Tracking my location using an iPhone and Google's myLocation feature.

Having fun with my iPhone

map — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:58:29 +0100

A short video of 2D barcode reading on my iPhone. (Yes, I heard about iMatrix, but I wanted a Datamatrix reader as I think it's a nicer format than QRCode. And it isn't riddled with patents.) The application is powered by the awesome libdmtx by the way. Thanks Mike!

Having fun with my iPhone

map — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:58:29 +0100

Having fun with my iPhone

map — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:58:29 +0100

Holisticly provide bullshit buzzwords

map — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:48:06 +0200

Seriously guys. WTF?

And now for something … different.

map — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 22:56:34 +0200

Recently I'm feeling that writing down things I care about has become a zero-sum game with gains not matching the losses. Writing about politics or, even worse, religion, always seems to come with the added bonus of a vocal minority proclaiming a boycott of the company I work for or complaining on my friends' blogs how they can put up with someone being that abominable. Add in JGGIFT, repeat a few times and public free speech becomes a nice idea with a slightly too low gain/loss ratio.

So without further ado, here's my version of the Pareto optimal on the issue: A book review. Mediocre, boring book reviews are still fair game on a personal blog, right? For full effect, put on Journey or some elevator music. (I like "Don't Stop Believin'", YMMW.) Here we go…

Quite a while ago I saw a pretty amazing video popping up on ssp's del.icio.us feed (Maker of the excellent UnicodeChecker). It's Derren Brown doing some subliminal influencing on two advertising guys.

"Wow", I thought, "that guy is seriously cool. And his stuff is produced very slickly." So after watching the stuff that is available about and with him on youtube and seeing "Something Wicked This Way Comes", his stage programme, I think I can call myself a fan. I always liked well choreographed magic, especially mentalism and Derren Brown is one of the best I've seen. I like how at the end he tells how he supposedly did the trick and I'm still wondering if the explanation is still part of the trick, another layer of distraction on top of a more simpler or more complicated trick.

To see what I mean, whatch the second clip with Simon Pegg as victim. If you don't know who Simon Pegg is, drop anything you are doing right now (most likely reading this post), watch Spaced and Shawn of the Dead at the very least and come back. … Done? Okay. Welcome to civilization. Back to Derren Brown: If you suspend rational disbelief for a moment it might seem like NLP's embedded commands and anchoring are the most powerful things since the electric bread slicer. However, what happend in reality? One can speculate or believe in the explanation, but in the end the fun in it all is that you won't find out. That's the magic.

So, after seeing an ad for it I bought Derren's latest book "Tricks of the Mind". I'm not sure what I was expecting, but at the time I was convinced it will prove a fascinating read. And it did.

The book starts out with a short chapter on disillusionment regarding popular believes. To some this might be a mayor turn-off, worthy of a metric ton of psychological knee-jerking, to me it made the author all the more interesting. That and the full-on nerdery about the correct plural of "octopus". (Derren insists on "octopodes", rather than Microsoft's dictionary's "ocotpi").

What follows is a eclectic journey of how minds can work, deceive and be tricked. Everything from slight-of-hand performance, memorization techniques, hypnosis, NLP, unconscious communication, believe in the super-natural, psychics to alternative medicine. And to me, the great thing is that the author always reminds to keep thinking critically and points to things to be skeptic about. Mr Brown has a very witty and casual writing style and seems to think highly of his reader's capability to think for himself. He although includes a commented and very extensive section for suggested further reading, I really liked.

In the end the book leaves me with the experience that sometimes imagination can be a very powerful tool in affecting change within the confinement of your own body and mind. It makes me think that this kind of sophisticated "believe" can be used to circumvent the psychological equivalent of the halting problem for personal use. And it drives home the point that the danger-zone for everybody begins when internal believe systems are getting mixed up with a concept of the shared objective reality we all live in and should therefore always be treated and taught as what they are: Tricks of the Mind.

And now for something … different.

map — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 22:56:34 +0200

So, after seeing an ad for it I bought Derren's latest book "Tricks of the Mind". I'm not sure what I was expecting, but at the time I was convinced it will prove a fascinating read. And it did.

0x2a: Category english

Hi there.

Feline odontoclastic resorptive lesion

Where in the world is my iPhone?

Where in the world is my iPhone?

Having fun with my iPhone

Having fun with my iPhone

Having fun with my iPhone

Holisticly provide bullshit buzzwords

And now for something &#8230; different.

And now for something &#8230; different.

And now for something … different.

And now for something … different.