Thought Storage B

Merry Christmas

2009-12-22T21:58:07Z

Just posting to wish you all a happy holiday season wether you celebrate christmas, yule, Lemmy's birthday or just being together with your loved ones!

Life updates shall resume when I'm back.

dasboese @ 2009-11-29T00:59:00

2009-11-28T23:59:42Z

Tomorrow morning my mom will be back from South Africa, so now I'm at her place, letting loose the long-eared beasts which haven't gotten out since I was here last weekend, just cleaned and fed by a neighbor/co-worker. They were so happy to see me and get out, they'll probably explode when she returns XD

I ordered a new monitor yesterday! It's this one, sort of:
http://www.lge.com/uk/it-products/monitors/LG-lcd-monitor-W2452T.jsp
(Mine's a W2452TX, but I can't really find any differences except that it's cheaper.)

This will actually be the first monitor ever that I bought brand new and on my own. Wow.

You see, as a child and a teen, both my computers and monitors were usually handed down from benevolent family members, and even my trusty, remarkably durable 15-inch Nokia was bought second-hand from my mother's workplace. It was quite good for a TFT back then, but I've had it for what, eight, nine years now? Yeah, I think it's about time for a replacement.

What remains to be seen is if my PC can handle the awesomeness. My current P4 is fine for work and internet and such, but with its 512MB RAM and Radeon8500, playing any recent games or going on SL is pretty much out of the question. The new monitor will probably push it to its limits.
Sure, I could revive my Athlon3200+ for about 40 Euros, but I fear that in the end, it would be only slightly less outdated than my current machine. So, now that I'm earning some money, building a new one is becoming more and more attractive. I blame you, jakkal, and AMD for making their CPUs so goddamn affordable ;P

Oh Yeah.

2009-10-05T23:40:56Z

Whee! As of tomorrow, I'll have a job! Well, student job anyway ;)
I got lucky because when I called, the job that had been posted was already gone, but it turned out they needed someone else for a different project and apparently my call came at exactly the right time. Went there friday afternoon for an interview, but they didn't really ask a lot of questions, mostly they gave me a short tour of the facility, showed me the job I'd be doing and said they'd call me when I could start. That happened today while I was on a train to get something I had wanted for a long time...

After I had just about been fed up with trying to get a Wacom (of any sort) for a reasonable price and decided to maybe go with one of the less reputable brands that had halfway favorable ratings... I got this nice Bamboo Fun Medium for 79€ off eBay, about half the original price! Sure, it's no Intuos, but I kinda feel I could never use one to its full potential anyway, and this one's pretty neat really. A5 sized, which you can't get with the regular Bamboo, plus better pressure sensitivity and eraser tip which are neat bonuses. As for the bundled software, ArtRage looks like it could be a lot of fun, though I don't really care for Photoshop Elements. I've got GIMP and it works perfectly with the tablet.

Yep, a good day.
May yours be the same!

dasboese @ 2009-09-30T15:13:00

2009-09-30T15:34:51Z

Called the company this morning to find out wether I got the job, which I didn't. I did expect it though because I caught a nasty cold on thursday, resulting in a somewhat awkward interview. No luck here at the university either, they had hired someone else just before I called. There's still a position at a laser company where the human resources person is on vacation, so I'll have to call back tomorrow and see, but otherwise I guess I'll need to keep looking.

On an entirely unrelated subject, I've spent a few evenings now, looking for an affordable tablet on eBay, but so far it's been a quite frustrating experience. It seems almost impossible to get a Wacom -even a Bamboo or Graphire- at a reasonable price. I'm almost at the point of saying "fuck it" and going with an A5 (8x6in) Manhattan, which is supposedly halfway decent for its price, but right now I'm still waiting to see if I can get a lucky shot at a Wacom.

That's all for now, take care.

Update!

2009-09-24T04:59:46Z

The new term will begin soon, and I feel like it's the first one in quite a while I can look forward to. Not that it'll be easier, hell no, I'll have even less money and I'm still behind in my studies, but passing that exam which unceremoniously ended my stay in Dresden and the distinct lack of life-threatening infections are positively motivating, as is the fact that I have a job interview on friday. To be honest my qualifications for that specific area of work (fiber-reinforced plastics)aren't very impressive, but you never know. I hope I can convince them that studying a vaguely relevant subject counts for something and if nothing else, I'm highly motivated by the desire to stop being poor.

Just when you think you've seen it all.

2009-07-05T15:00:42Z

...

Give me an F, give me an A, give me an I, give me an L!

2009-05-27T18:52:19Z

Ah those days in one's life comprised of nothing but utter fail.
I seem to be a magnet for them lately.

Time for the only remedy I know to work: a bottle of cheap whisk-ey and amplified guitars.

Seeya later.

Bad luck... or is it?

2009-05-18T00:15:02Z

I seem to have no luck with anything electronic lately... especially PCs.
This time it's the hard drive.
Luckily I had most of my stuff backed up on the secondary disk, but my email history and some files I hadn't backed up yet are toast, and of course I had no functioning OS. I wasn't keen on buying new PC parts anytime soon, just last week I went out and bought myself a new helmet and some textile pants plus armor inserts which set me back quite a few Euros, but after contemplating the fact that all working hard drives I have are showing their age, I figured I should go and buy a new one and be safe from any more nasty surprises. So I went and got myself a new SATA 500GB WD Caviar Green. I put it into the 2.4GHz P4 I had wanted to use for some time, but didn't because I couldn't get it to work with the XP on the old hard drive or connect to the internet in ubuntu. I figure I was being blocked by the network for being on a PC it didn't recognize. I wrote an email to our admins, initially the problem persisted but obviously it's fixed now :D

tl;dr My hard drive died which sucks, but at least it forced me to switch to a different PC that was just standing around catching dust, despite being better than the one I had, so I guess it's alright. And I have a shiny new helmet with an integrated sun visor which totally rocks!

See you around.

dasboese @ 2009-03-30T00:34:00

2009-03-29T23:22:25Z

I'm almost done with packing my stuff and managed to dismantle some of my furniture.
Looks like I'll be moving tuesday afternoon. I'd have liked to do it over the weekend, but alas, a visit to the dorm on friday proved that the room was still inhabited and will be until tomorrow afternoon.
I'd move in right after he left, unfortunately my schedule neatly placed a course in that timeframe, but I plan to at least paint the room in the evening. The visit has revealed it to be permeated by a nasty stench, which suggests either a faulty sink (Yes, it has a sink. Very practical.) or unpleasant implications about the current tenant's approach to hygiene. In any case Ew. He also insisted the walls were still good enough to not need painting, so I'll probably use "smells of smoke" or something as an excuse.
Sadly I haven't found a garage yet, or at least none I'd be willing to pay as much for as the owner asks. We'll see, she did offer to call me back once one of the smaller and cheaper ones is available.

Dead or not?

2009-03-14T08:22:55Z

The MZ drama doesn't seem to be quite over.
I've just come across some articles in a German moto mag and local newspapers that they finally might have found some investors: former GP riders Ralf Waldmann and Martin Wimmer.
If we're to believe them they "secured 98% of the funding", already registered the new company's name with the local authorities and look to set the deal before march 19th. Hmmmmmm...

I want to believe.

dasboese @ 2009-03-08T01:21:00

2009-03-08T02:06:05Z

Things are going well for once.
My application for a dorm room has been approved, I should manage to clear the bureaucratic hassles of the actual renting process in the next few weeks and move in around the 1st of April.
The most important aspect here is of course that it costs over 100 Euros less a month, money I can really use, but aside from that it's also a fairly nice place if you don't mind the usual shared bathroom/kitchen and the somewhat oddly shaped rooms. In addition to highspeed internet thanks to a dedicated fiber-optic line, it has a small gym, a sauna and a bar open every wednesday. Not to mention it's five minutes walking distance from the aerospace department, instead of the half-hour bus ride and ten minute walk from where I currently reside.

I've also ordered a new printer to replace the Canon i550 that died on me (Apparently they all do that. Planned obsolescence?) back in january, it should arrive on monday and relieve me of having to go to the university/library for every little print job. It was suspiciously cheap for a supposedly brand new DeskJet 5650, but we'll see. At least I'm confident it will be a better choice than the used Business Inkjet 1100 for 15 Euros that I had seriously considered at one point XD

My lungs seem to be healing nicely too, but I'll be a nice patient and take it easy for a few more weeks like the doctor said.

That's all for now, take care.

dasboese @ 2009-02-19T21:54:00

2009-02-20T01:25:16Z

Comment to this post and I will give you about 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

Taking over from shadhahvar:

► Motorcycles
Just a way to get from point A to point B to some, a way of life to others.
I`m somewhere in the middle. I enjoy riding a motorcycle and it's something I want to do as long as I'm physically and mentally able to, but I'll forever fail to understand the kind of fanatical devotion that some people develop, be it about a certain brand, a certain style of motorcycle or riding in general.
I think limiting yourself to a single aspect of the matter and never even looking at the rest is stupid. Of course I have preferences and dislikes, everyone does, but I can enjoy motorcycles of many kinds, old -like the one I own now- or modern, regardless of their HP, displacement or country of origin.
That's also one reason why I don't like to be called a "biker"... even though I sure look like one XD

In any case, you should try it too!

► Germany (aslfjkddsflkj sorry)
Ah, my home country! though that isn't entirely correct, because there were actually two of those when I was born. Mine was the slighly less successful, socialist one that ceased existing about 20 years ago, a fact which a great deal of people still make a fuss about.
To be honest, my nationalistic and patriotic tendencies are terribly underdeveloped, almost vestigial. I mean, Germany's not a bad place, yeah, there are surely worse countries to live in... it`s just not where I would want to spend the rest of my life.

Come visit us, though. We've got loads of castles, museums and historic places, great landscapes and funny accents. Not to mention the beer is really good!

► Black Tapestries
The place where I met most, if not all, of my internet friends(see below XD).
Still one of my favourite Webcomics, even with the long inactivity. I don't know what exactly I like about it. Perhaps the whole approach to it, having a detailed world with its own rules and history, and then exploring its possibilities using believable characters. The RP origin of the characters probably helps with that. What's there is like one of those books that you can read over and over again.
I'm not terribly afraid that it'll never be continued, for one because that's a damn long time, and also because Jakkal said so.

► Internet Friendships
Complicated. The internet is my preferred communication medium with all my friends, so there is little emotional difference for me between my internet friends and the "real" ones. At least that's what I like to think, it's probably not entirely true. One thing I noticed is that friendships with people that I met on the internet seem to have a lower half-life. Mind you, I lost contact with RL friends too, just not that quickly. In some cases I regret that I didn`t make more effort to hold on to them, for which I sometimes blame my shyness, but also often think that they probably didn't care all that much for internet friends, or their interests shifted and they moved on with their lives.

► 80's Music
Haha XD I'm not sure that "80's Music" can very easily be applied to the kind of music I listen to, hard rock and metal. I mean... a lot of influential styles and bands evolved in that decade, as I mentioned in a comment in shadhahvar's LJ, some of the bands I listen to haven't changed all that much since the 80's. But it'd be a stretch to call them "80's music".
Pop music in the 80's, for which the term is probably most appropriate, is however definitely distinct. If only by the fact that a lot of it was really terrible. In a distinctly 80's way.
Well, I may be somewhat biased here ;)
Actually it's a bit problematic to hold up that claim if you look at the fact that pop and rock weren't all that separate in the 80's, there was a lot of overlapping. Actually that might be a defining feature of 80's Music in and of itself... anyway, in some cases it meant the result was good pop music, in others it lead to what can only described as a horrible abomination of rock music... and in some cases, the result was simply hilarious. Point in case: Twisted Sister, lol.

That's that. I had to hold myself back a bit, especially on the subject of motorcycles ;P

Ask in the comments and you shall receive 5 things to endlessly mull about too!

Right now, carnival has completely taken over the city, something Cologne is famous for. Me, I don't particularly like it because I don't like forced jolliness. I'm not the type to go out and party with people I have nothing in common with just because they're wearing a costume. Aside from the fact that I'm still recovering from that pneumonia, so partying of any kind is out of the question for at least a month.
Aachen isn't less infected with the carnival virus, which will last until wednesday. Regardless I'll probably return sunday or monday.

Biological Warfare

2009-02-18T00:53:18Z

I guess I know now why it's a bad idea to go jogging early in the morning at near freezing temperatures: It can give you a nasty case of pneumonia, which was the reason for my recent absence from IM services and the internet in general.
It started about three weeks ago, in the first week I just vegetated in a delirious daze and didn't even think of going to a doctor until friday. They promptly refused to check me on grounds of an expired healthcare card, so -knowing I wouldn't make it back there again if I went home to find the replacement card- I went to the pharmacy and got some paracetamol to get me through the weekend, but that saturday I had a sudden rush of fear. I mean that really bad, mortal kind of fear. So I called my mom and asked her to get me to the hospital in Cologne because understandably, my trust in Aachen's medical facilities was somewhat shaken. At the emergency ward they diagnosed me with a bacterial infection and sent me on my merry way with some antibiotics. The next thursday it was clear that they didn't work, and an X-ray finally revealed the pneumonia which by then was quite serious, so the doctor had me admitted to the hospital that same evening. I spent over a week there, receiving antibiotic infusions through one of those things they pu in your arm, and various pills until it was determined via x-ray and lung testing that I was well enough to be released. That was last friday. I felt pretty weak over the weekend still, which is probably due to the fact that a hospital isn't a very relaxing environment, but now I'm obviously well enough to at least get on the internet again ;)
According to the doctor, full recovery will take until at least mid march, so that means no party, no sports and no heavy physical activity until then.
Pity because there's a Judas Priest concert next tuesday, with Megadeth and Testament too. I wanted to go with my mom because she hasn't been to a concert for over a year too, she even bought the tickets, but she doesn't want to go alone so we're selling them on ebay.
I missed out on a great deal of exams too, they were all held last week except for two that will be in mid-march. I had already cancelled a few beforehand because the lack of sleep in those first two weeks left me unable to concentrate, much less learn, so I knew I wouldn't be able to pull off 6 exams in 5 days. Luckily my mom got in contact with the university so they'd know I was sick and not just skipping the exams, which would mean automatic failing. So now I need to re-take the exams in the summer term, where I already wanted to be finished with all that basic stuff, which shakes up my plans somewhat, but meh. It can't be helped.

I`ll probably spend the rest of the week here in Cologne to recover some more before I return to Aachen to prepare for the other two exams. Then I'll be available for IM again too.

Change and SCIENCE!

2009-01-21T00:31:26Z

I'm glad I left the video stream on for the inaugural parade, because right at the end NASA showed off their Lunar Rover Concept. Fuckawesome, because you know... SCIENCE! XD

The speech was pretty good, from a non-american sort of perspective. The man certainly seemed to enjoy himself. I feel happy for him and his family.

Waking nightmare

2009-01-04T07:44:34Z

Tonight I slept from... maybe nine in the evening, to about half past two. The dream I had wasn't really mentionable, what I remember of it was about playing soccer on a muddy field. I started to wake up as reality began to seep into this dream world of mine, changing my dream location to a nondescript room, which slowly turned into my real room when my senses came back online -it's not easy to describe.
Anyway, I wasn't completely aware my surroundings yet, but conscious, when I started feeling that I couldn't move.
At some point I was almost completely awake, but still couldn't move at all. Well, nearly. I could move my eyelids with extreme difficulty and I might have been able to twitch around a bit, maybe bend a finger, but I was effectively paralyzed.

That was scary as hell.

Suddenly it's 2009

2009-01-03T07:54:06Z

Dear friends! I hope you all made the switch into the new year well, whatever your preferred method of conduct for this occasion was, wether being with family, friends or alone, partying the ever living daylights out of the place or calmly watching that last second pass.

A lot of people expect this year to be a rather bad one, worse in any case than the last (and possibly a number of ones before it), some in specific ~~more or less cleverly guessed~~ economical figures, but more often in a general, overall fashion that I absolutely, utterly fail to understand. I think that's quite unfair towards 2009, we've only known it for 3 days.

I can think of quite some positive things to expect for this year. Just off the top of my head:
-Publishing of test results and review data for WB-7, the Polywell nuclear fusion device that was built to verify earlier tests and formulas developed by the late Dr. Bussard. Rumors are that the results are encouraging.
-Start of experiments at the LHC to detect elementary particles and learn about their interactions. What I love about this particular experiment is that they literally can't fail. Even if they detect nothing, that's quite a significant find if, by all theoretical means, there should be something.
-Currently expensive, but awesome technology such as high-powered LEDs and lithium-ion batteries will become both cheaper and better.
-Maiden flight of the privately built Falcon-9 space rocket, aside from heaps of other exciting space missions, like PLANCK which will map the cosmic microwave background to provide some clues as to how it all began.
-The Chevrolet Camaro and Volt. Rrrr.
-Guantanamo bay prison is supposed to be closed, hopefully sooner than later.
-Obama will take office, and we will have parliament elections. I may not like politics, but democracy is awesome.

Take care of yourselves, I'll be around.

Ah yes, for those wondering about my dead computer, my aunt gave me an old, barely-used P4. It wasn't particularly powerful even when new, but it beats anything I could have thrown together from spare parts and runs quite nicely under Linux.

Murphy won

2008-12-15T09:21:56Z

Saturday my computer finally died.
Posting from an university machine now.

I don't want to bore you with a lot of details. It tended to crash with a "hardware failure" BSOD ever since I moved it to my current place in Aachen, so saturday I tested it with memtest68+ to see if maybe the memory was bad.
The test result was that the computer fried itself.
I took that as a subtle hint that it's something worse than just a bad memory module. It won't even boot, so the mainboard's probably toast. I suspect it got hit one too many times during transport.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to replace it anytime soon because right now, I'm barely scraping by with the money I have. I might try and see if I can put together some old pre-athlon rig for basic internet access after the holidays, but otherwise, I'll probably be stuck using computers at the FH and my mother's computer in Cologne for a while.

Take care.

Cartoons!

2008-11-12T15:41:48Z

I just noticed that one of my favourite German cartoons is being translated to English!
Website's here: NOTFUNNY Cartoons

So far there are only about two dozen cartoons, but they seem to add newly translated ones fairly often :D

Your flight is now ready for boarding

2008-10-27T22:03:24Z

dasboese @ 2008-10-08T23:05:00

2008-10-08T21:56:26Z

So, I'm halfway through the first week, which mainly consisted of introductory courses for the freshmen and socializing... yeah. I didn't do a lot of that because I ran into some problems courtesy of me being new, but "officially" in 3rd semester.

The following's a bit technical, so bear with me ;)
Course subscription is electronic here, which is all ~~slow and bug-ridden~~ fine and dandy -unless you're starting in 3rd instead of 1st semester, and late. The subscription deadline for freshmen was today, so there was ample time... but turns out I can't apply like they do, my deadline (even for freshman courses) was Sept. 29th... which was before I moved in and therefor, before I had internet. So I need to sort that out, or I'll have a lot of free time that I don't exactly want.

Also, there's going to be some interesting timetable juggling because, naturally, I want to take both 1st and 3rd semester courses, the schedules of which frequently collide, time-wise. Problem: I can't be in two places at once. Those who tried generally sustained only minor injuries, but the really eager ones tend to explode quite violently all of a sudden. Not something I want.

In other news, last saturday I rode my mom's bike here since it's more streetworthy than any of mine right now, and I do need reliable transportation. Haven't checked out the bus route to the FHA, but public transport here is a catastrophe. It has to do with Aachen's ~~terrible~~unique street layout. I still need to bring about my bicycle (that has stood abandoned in a cellar for ages and was subsequently claimed & refurbished by me. Still need to paint it though, it's not black enough ;D ).

That's it for now., stay tuned.

Restart complete

2008-10-03T00:17:38Z

Hey everyone, I'm back.

Just moved in yesterday, there are still a few bits and pieces I forgot to bring, but I've got my bed, my couch and a computer with internet connection, that'll do nicely. Uni starts next week, though that's more of an orientation week I think. Still need to figure out which courses to take, how to use the online course management and such.

See ya, and looking forward to talk to you all again :D

Moving day

2008-08-23T09:52:26Z

According to the ISP, DSL should be available at my mother's place after next week, and I can keep my contract there... so if I'm lucky you'll hear from me in a few weeks.

Got the bikes and all my stuff from the Garage yesterday,now it's time to load the rest of my stuff into the truck and be on my way.

Including this PC and the router, so I'll just disconne

Radio Blah-Blah

2008-07-09T20:52:21Z

Well, time sure has been flying since I started that internship. As of tomorrow, there will be only three weeks left of the eight I need to do, and I can say without a doubt that I wouldn't mind if it was a bit longer. This place is so totally different from the other company I was at. There, people were like... fucking robots, preoccupied with their work, they would rarely smile or even talk and very obviously viewed me as a redundant pain in the ass that they had to employ somehow because the boss said so. They generally treated me like some kind of mentally retarded ape, capable of nothing but the very simplest tasks; open machine, insert part, press button, repeat. Monkey do.
Here, on the other hand, people (including the management) talk and joke and laugh and treat each other like human beings. They make me feel like I'm actually needed. Even the more repetitive tasks never carry that atmosphere of futility I often felt at the other place, and I've found myself working longer than I need to and not caring about it more than a few times.

There's one thing though, one thing that bothers me.

I don't know how it is wherever you live, but over here, in most workplaces, the radio tends to be on pretty much all the time. Understandable, people like having some music to carry them over the long hours of work, and the news make for good conversation material. So much for the theory.
In the past five weeks, I've been reminded why I don't listen to the radio. Ever.

I'm definitely snobby about my musical tastes, as you may well know, but generally I try to be tolerant. Somewhat tolerant. There's a limit though... I mean... you can hear the top 50 or so of the charts only so many times before it gets really annoying. Of course, most stations throw in a few songs from the 80s and 90s, but then again, those are also old "hits" and they never, ever change. Doesn't matter which station you tune into, they're all the fucking same! How often do you have to hear the same song played over and over again before you go insane? They're coming to take me away, haha... ;)
I also wonder how any human being can stand repeating the same talky-bits and lame jokes over and over again, as the DJs are doing. Don't even get me started on the jingles *shudders*
Of course, there's the classical and talk-radio stations, but let's be honest... that's nothing you can listen to all day unless you're a diehard classical nerd, or, in the case of talk radio, a masochist.

Long story short, work rocks, radio sucks.

Seeya later.

WOOHOOO

2008-05-30T11:15:39Z

I got the internship!

It's a rapid prototyping company, smallish (~10 people) and they've offered to pay me too. I'll probably start sometime next week or the week after, then I can apply at the Aachen university of applied sciences. What's left to do is terminate the rent for the flat and garage... and by the end of August, I'm out of here.

June 4th update:
I start tomorrow at 9.30am. Wheeeee!

dasboese @ 2008-05-28T17:36:00

2008-05-28T15:54:35Z

After heaps of negative responses finally got an interview for an internship on Friday.
I hope it goes well, because at this point I'm kinda desperate.