British Chicks

I think it’s no big secret that Englishwomen – the majority of them, at any rate – don’t exactly meet the beauty standards of the western worlds. When my buddy Michael and I were in London a few months ago, a running joke between us was to point out that all the cute women we saw were obviously not of British origin.

>Meg: “You could kill all the girls who are cuter than me!”
>
>Death: “No, that would only leave England.”
>
>\- Family Guy

I don’t really pay attention to such matters, but through a blurb on the BBC news frontpage I noticed that England elected a new Miss England in September. And lo and behold, she is a [young girl from Uzbekistan / Afghanistan](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4212412.stm).

I rest my case.

Printing

[This week is horrible](/2005/12/07/annoying-days/). Today, I got handed the task of “coordinating” contractors who will set up two new racks and various servers for us. Nevermind the fact that I get to spend half my day in a loud, cold, dry data center deep in the bowels of the Earth; it is already impossible to get something printed here.

* Printer 1 has no toner anymore. For 2 weeks. Supplier is slow – and sent us wrong cartridges.
* Printer 2 changed IP. Can’t print if I don’t know the IP.
* Printer 3 is locked into some office.

I now solved the issue by faxing it to our secretary’s office. Had to wait about 30 minutes for the fax to arrive.

I wanna print 1 sheet a year and it takes me an hour… unbelievable. Murphy sends his regards.

Getting Serious about Digital Freedoms

As they try to take more and more rights away from us, I’m finally getting serious about digital freedoms.

As you may have noticed, the contents of this website (and some of my others) are now [licensed under a Creative Commons license](/copyright/). Specifically, it’s an “Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs 2.0 Germany License”. In short it allows you to distribute my work as long as you attribute me, but it does not allow you to modify or build derivative works or to use any of my stuff for commercial purposes. Your fair use rights are not affected, for example it’d still be okay to quote excerpts in your own weblogs. I am not a lawyer. Use your common sense.

Last week, [I started using Jabber](/2005/12/01/instant-message-independence/). Okay, since I will want to keep in touch of all the nice people on my contact list I won’t be giving up the legacy services such as AOL IM, ICQ, MSN, or Yahoo! Messenger anytime soon. However, I’ll be actively encouraging others to start using Jabber to contact me.

The next step I am working on is to finally start using strong encryption for all my personal email. I’ll keep you updated on that as it happens.

My 2 Minutes of Fame

Well, well! I was recently mentioned on [Geek Speak radio #41](http://geekspeakradio.com/?p=68) – for providing some feedback, so no big deal – and today on one of my favorite Podcasts, [Corey and Joel Radio Show](http://www.coreyandjoelradio.com/) on [Episode #45](http://www.coreyandjoelradio.com/archives/2005/12/corey_and_joel_42.html) for being a geeky fan of the show! Hehe. Yeah, [love your podcast](http://geek.pandemonium.de/2005/10/21/podcast-reviews-1/) guys, sorry I couldn’t come for the live show, it’d have been great fun.

Does this make me world-famous now?

Annoying Days

The past few days have been utterly annoying. Started on monday, I guess, with me getting my finger caught in the flip-top of a ketchup bottle. Hurt. On Tuesday, I woke up 1h late only to walk into a bathroom with a floor covered in a huge puddle of water. I guess I was lucky: i had just not closed the valve of the radiator correctly after draining the air the night before. Could have been worse.

Then I arrive at work to find a server problem. No specifics here, but let’s just say it kept me stressed for most of the day. On the way home, tried a Mexican place with the guys, which was fine. Slept 4h last night, had to pump myself up with a sugary diet today, wanted to leave early but didn’t manage, until at 4:20 or so we hear the sirens at the fire station in the distance. Some minutes later, the fire brigande can be heard.

“That took them a while,” one of the guys sayid.

“And sounds really close,” another replied.

A few minutes later a stranger in a blue coverall and a bright yellow vest pops his head in the office.

“There is a cable fire between the two buildings, you are kindly requested to leave the building and gather at your assigned meeting point.”

Packed our stuff and left. The fire was already over when we got out, the guys went back to work and I headed home. Just to get stuck on an overly crowded subway for half an hour, and to have ellbows and other body parts in my face when people tried to shove me aside to leave at the central station.

Sure, all [not as bad as Martin's average day](http://www.martinlormes.de/blogger/2005_12_04_archive.html#113382483947406981) but I am so looking forward to my vacations.

Nils on eBay

Nils hat es - eBay.de AdvertisementCleaning up my Documents folder these days, I came across this screenshot I made of [Spiegel Online](http://www.spiegel.de/) showing an Ad for the [German eBay](http://www.ebay.de). The text says, “Nils has it.” These are the moments I wish I could claim a trademark on my first name :-)

Oh well.

At least this is not as annoying as “Nils Holgersson” or these days “Der Kleine Nils” (_Little Nils_), a comedy farce done by a German radio station.

Instant-Message Independence

Some days ago I have finally installed a [Jabber daemon for Pandemonium](http://www.pandemonium.de/2005/11/29/jabber-server/). It supports inter-server communication, and I tested it with Lars’ help. It works pretty well. So if you have a Jabber account, add me as nils -at- jabber.pandemonium.de (substituting @ for -at- of course).

Hopefully, as [Jabber](http://www.jabber.org) gains more momentum, we can all rid ourselves of the proprietary protocols, with their insane terms of service, screwed-up privacy policies (or rather lack-of-privacy policies), and last but not least ad-ridden chat client.

Malaysia – January

Last night, I booked my flight to [Malaysia](http://wikitravel.org/en/Malaysia). I guess I am really going, yeah! I am already excited. Never been there. I will get to see my dear friend [Wenny](http://gizmo78.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/), and of course such things as the famous [Petronas Towers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_Towers). It’ll be so much fun! I just hope the climate will not kill me. ;-)

I’ll be sure to update you guys once the trips draws nearer, and I’ll be posting a travelogue with pictures over at [Geek Travel](http://www.geektravel.info) as time permits.

I’ll definitely need a new digital camera now.

The big irony of this travel is that I’ll fly with KLM – for purely economical considerations.

Let it snow, Let it snow!

Snow in Frankfurt

This is what Frankfurt looks like tonight. I felt coimpelled to dig out some Christmessy songs:

>Oh the weather outside is frightful
>But the fire is so delightful
>And since we’ve no place to go
>Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
>
>It doesn’t show signs of stopping
>And I brought some corn for popping
>The lights are turned way down low
>Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

I went to bed some hours ago because I was just feeling deadly tired. Now I woke up and saw this. I mean, when I went home last night there was already snow falling, but it was very fine and didn’t seem to even hit the ground.