for the first time since I don’t know how long I had to call in sick today.. after all these years with “weekend-sickness” (meaning I get to work again on monday) this time we really cought something. Actually, we suspect Vincent having brought this home from the daycare (if you look at the children’s noses you should suspect that) ;)
Anyway, both Anna and me (and poor Vincent) have congested noses and can hardly breathe, cough a lot and have temperature. For Vincent this is even worse, as he can’t drink like this. (Try to drink a glass of water while you hold your nose closed… tricky!)

Germany (the government, that is) is actively pursuing the development (since 2005) and deployment (since 2007) of a trojan horse that they use to secretly search through computers of citizens. It is dubbed “Bundestrojaner” and its official description is “remote forensic software”
See more about it here: (wikipedia)

This is following the argumentation that (freely interpreted):
“If you don’t have anything to hide, you should not have a problem with this software”

By the way: The post of the CCC that the trojan was hidden in the tax software was a April fool’s joke meant to sensitize people, I absolutely fell for it.. teaches me to think before I panic in the future ;)

Recently, all “hacking tools” have been prohibited in Germany. What is next?

In a recent move, Angela Merkel has forced an amendment to the liberty laws through Der Bundestag. It is from now on prohibited to use any operating system that is non-trivial to break into.
German police have started to do house-to-house searches of Internet users reported to be not hackable by the Security Services (SS) of the Federal Government.

More action is to follow soon, the Minister of Information of the Federal Government, who only wanted to be known by his initials, JG, confirmed:
“We have outlawed the use and ownership of any so-called security tool, to liberate Germans from FUD, Fear Uncertainty and Danger. We have outlawed any operating system that hinders the proper execution of the tasks of the SS.” He promised to follow up on speculations of setting up a re-education camp for deviant Internet users in Bergen-Belsen. He asked the reporter to supply his e-mail address, in order to deliver the adequate response into her mailbox as soon as that response was ready.

Somebody once said: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” – I hope we won’t have to let it come to that.

Today I decided to listen to a CD – yeah, these shiny things that contain music… they were in use before mp3 took over the market and we all started downloading mp3 like crazy

Anyway, because I didn’t have a mp3 recording of Beethoven’s 5th symphony I played it from CD… and I got tears in my eyes.
The music, so crystal clear, so voluminous, so…. deep. It has been some time that my MB Quart speakers have produced such a sound.. the sound they were produced for.

I then went to my harddrive and began erasing all <192k mp3 files, making notes to replace them with either VBR mp3 files (see “how to make perfect mp3 files”) or converting straight away to OGG, AAC+ or even lossless FLAC. Never again do I want to listen to crappy mp3 sound without a “soul”

I have not been listening to a CD for.. I don’t know how long. Time to re-invent the wheel ;)