would you please send me a kill switch for my give-a-shitter? I need that to survive work without going mad and committing mega-idioticide... Oh, and a set of human-rated gills, please, too: to survive the cruddy weather this "summer.

[ published on Tue 07.12.2010 19:37 | filed in still-not-king | ]
 enten-besuch


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[ published on Tue 30.11.2010 22:53 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Can you think of something more ridiculous than this? Imagine: a cyclist riding up to a traffic light, not getting out of his clipless pedals in time and falling over like a drunk chicken.
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[ published on Sat 20.11.2010 20:42 | filed in still-not-king | ]

i hate having neighbours close by, or sharing a wall. more specifically, i hate my neighbours except for A+M+M, but the others more than make up for those good people.

i hate the goddamn noisy brats - there's a difference between 'happy kids' and 'loud tantrum-throwing fucks', and i don't mind the former at all.

the rest, they can all die as far as i'm concerned, and soon, please.

[ published on Sun 07.11.2010 21:14 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Conny has left the building. Still in transit: yesterday BNE-AKL, a few hours in Auckland, then AKL-LAX and many boring hours to be whiled away in Los Angeles. Now she's close to boarding her last flight, LAX-PHL, and should arrive back home in Philadelphia tomorrow morning local time.

...

And it's pretty empty in this here house, without her around.

[ published on Wed 18.08.2010 12:58 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Tokyo's oldest living man was actually more like the oldest undiscovered modern-age mummy: dead for about 30 years.

Now this couldn't happen to me: first this climate is too humid for meat staying fresh long (and my ceiling fans wouldn't suffice for making me into biltong), and furthermore my money would run out, my house would go back to the bank (but that's only for a few more years) and so the vultures would find me. Sky burial by bank clerk, anyone?

Sort-of bad: there aren't many other scenarios for me being discovered.

[ published on Fri 30.07.2010 12:57 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Today, after reading up on couchdb I decided to take a break from vapour-ware and high-flying ideas and Do Something Practical, like finally take apart my whipper snipper to figure out why it doesn't start (different kinds of vapours are involved, this being a cheap two-stroke FPOS).

Enthusiastic tool application quickly demonstrated one big issue with any metal FPOS (remember, I said cheap): very rough edges. Slipping and sliding the back of your finger along such edges is highly counter-indicated.

 bloody sink

Well, there must have been a caterpillar lurking beneath the skin on my index finger, because this not-so-deep cut was dribbling red juice beyond what I'd have expected; and the motor oil, petrol and other assorted grease-suspended gunk on my hands didn't exactly make my journey to the bathroom any cleaner.

But the icing on the cake came later: I did, of course, finish the disassembly after wrapping up my finger - only to find out that the whipper snipper engine is beyond salvation. Just about zero compression, most rubber/plastic parts rotten. A new one will likely cost less than the replacement parts, never mind the time and effort for a potential repair.

WAAAAAAH!

[ published on Sat 10.04.2010 17:24 | filed in still-not-king | ]

...of having extremely few friends, no girlfriend (and no hope of finding one), absolutely zero social life and of having an apparently abrasive personality?
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[ published on Fri 26.02.2010 01:38 | filed in still-not-king | ]

...first, I'd get a muzzle for the damn howler monkey neighbours' dog. Not because of the barking, but because of the dog being one of the root causes for the everlasting bloody aggravation: see, he's got some Doberman in the mix, and his owners are total assholes, so he's decent-sized, frisky and badly educated. That makes him pinch the damn kids when they yell and scream too much, eliciting more screaming and howling, which generates more pinching and screaming and tantrums...Oh Joy.

Next, I'd cut all the howler monkeys' vocal cords, and thus earn the everlasting gratitude from the other neighbours around - who are all fairly quiet denizens.

And finally, I'd shoot all the monkey neighbours for good measure - 'it's the only way to be sure'.

No, I'm not angry, not at all. Why do you think so?

From the bottom of my heart I wish the plague and a quick, quiet death on these neighbours.

[ published on Sun 14.02.2010 15:32 | filed in still-not-king | ]

The first day of the trimester at work, and I've got an 0800 lecture... for the one (inherited) subject I dislike teaching the most. Bah. And the projector in the room is squirrely. Aaaaaargh! And the room is generallylousy. Double-bah. And my brain is fogged up enough so that I'm quite sure I'm making more of a hash of the subject material than necessary. Sorry dear students! My best efforts at 0800 today weren't really quite good enough.

What a lovely way to begin the week!

[ published on Mon 18.01.2010 19:08 | filed in still-not-king | ]

drumroll

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[ published on Wed 16.12.2009 16:05 | filed in still-not-king | ]
 vienna graffito


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[ published on Tue 24.11.2009 12:38 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Two days ago was the eigth anniversary of my arrival in Australia. Sometimes that feels like yesterday, sometimes more like three lives ago.

Today is also the sixth anniversary of moving into this house. For lots of Australians six years in one place is three lives ago; many deal with houses like crab shells: too small, ugly, whatever? then let's molt^Wmove and forget the old carcass. The housing industry obliges by mainly offering shoddily built disposables. sigh.

[ published on Wed 12.08.2009 21:51 | filed in still-not-king | ]
 washer no more belt

To round out a fairly crappy weekend, this afternoon my washing machine decided to eat its drive belt - of course while spinning at full speed, so as to maximize the damage. Picture me sitting peacefully in the toilet (which is adjacent to the laundry), bang and lotsa thumping and crashing and the lights are out.

Suppose I'm sorta lucky, the wiring loom is ripped apart but not totally wrecked, and the motor bearings seem to have survived their chewing exercise without damage.

[ published on Sun 14.06.2009 22:12 | filed in still-not-king | ]

I'm not "normal" - and I like it that way!
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[ published on Fri 15.05.2009 01:00 | filed in still-not-king | ]

...seeing seven round ice lumps floating tightly packed in your drink glass makes you pick up pencil and paper to determine if this tight packing is possible only when all balls have the same radius.

(Yes it is. Trigonometry is fun.)

[ published on Tue 03.03.2009 11:54 | filed in still-not-king | ]

You know that you live in a Banana...well, non-Republic if the exchange rates between your lifeblood and real money looks like this:

AUD-ATS-0400-0-0-11-2454658-2454748

Source: Werner Antweiler's Exchange Rate stats

[ published on Thu 09.10.2008 09:17 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Last Thursday Conny, Rob and I went for a day trip to Nth Stradbroke island, with a bit of fun (of all kinds) in the preceding afternoon.


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[ published on Wed 08.10.2008 11:28 | filed in still-not-king | ]

We're back, connected once again: some techie must have been in the neighbourhood saturday night, because Saturday 2138 line-sync suddenly reappeared, and today I finished setting up the remaining bits (e.g. inbound POTS-to-VOIP etc.) and verified that Internode didn't make a mess of their part of the service conversion.

Looks all mostly good, except line attenuation has jumped up 10dB (without the previously required inline filter), which makes little sense, and sits now at 50dB downstream. This sucks as it severly limits the achievable sync speeds and makes things a tad more brittle. Ticket open, we'll see.

[ published on Sun 08.06.2008 20:44 | filed in still-not-king | ]
 ex-huntsman ex-huntsman

When Conny went to brush her teeth tonight before bedtime, I suddenly got a fairly urgent/distressed Request for Assistance: she stood mesmerized at the bathroom door, and a meter from her sat an (equally mesmerized) huntsman spider of less that minimal size (maybe 10x10cm with the legs). She strongly dislikes spiders.

And so do I. Usually, smaller specimens I don't bother; they eat bugs and thus are not exactly welcome but tolerated household members (if they stay hidden and out of the geckos' way). But this one was too large for my liking, so it got the bucket-on-top-and-then-poison-inside treatment (huntsmen are very fast). Sorry fella!

Conny asked for this note to any future spider visitors to be posted on the web (maybe spiders use google? dunno): Small and tiny spiders tolerated, large ones very unwelcome. May be dealt with harshly!

[ published on Mon 02.06.2008 00:18 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Oi, get your minds out of the gutter!
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[ published on Wed 12.03.2008 21:01 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Yesterday was lots of fun.
click here for the rest of the story...

[ published on Thu 06.03.2008 13:39 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Conny has pretty much settled in, but my brain is close to pastel overload already.

I've had to move just about all my stuff from her room so that she can make it into her den. She brought three fat and one slim suitcases full of things, and her room is unrecognizable.

 2008_01_26-conny-arriving.jpg

The only remainder of my things are my Tektronix scope, the HP function generator and a bench vise on the desk.

 2008_01_26-conny-zimmer2.jpg 2008_01_29-conny-zimmer3.jpg

Cognitive dissonance: the shelf above the TEK and the HP now contains mainly pink boxes, makeup, dolls and other girly gear (instead of soldering station, multimeters, charger, bench PSU and other tools).

School seems to be fine and fun; she has gotten lost (slightly) between home and there twice so far.

 2008_01_30-conny-uniform.jpg
[ published on Fri 01.02.2008 19:59 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Whenever I am optimistic and not expecting trouble, this state of oblivion usually gets cut short, badly, when it rains problems. On the other hand, if I expect bad things and worry, a lot less trouble finds its way to me. This sucks.
click here for the rest of the story...

[ published on Sun 27.01.2008 18:00 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Juhuuuuh! Heute hat die Post endlich mein Weihnachtsgeschenk aus Ö vorbei gebracht: Alle 19 Kottan-Folgen, auf 8 DVDs.

Ah, Nostalgie pur. Böse Wiener Gfrasta. Inspektor gibt's kan. 70er Jahre Schädelweh-Tapeten. Danzer-Gstanzln. Ambros. Wunderbar.

Danke, liebe Frau Mutter!

[ published on Mon 21.01.2008 21:51 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Next Wednesday my daughter Cornelia is arriving in Oz, to spend a fun and action-packed year 2008 with me. Well, let's hope the action is of the Good Type...either way, there goes my independence.

In other non-news the weather still sucks completely, it's been so wet and humid over the last weeks that some of my leather gear (bike suit and mountain boots; what did YOU think?) started to get mouldy on the surface. This sucks.

Work sucks, too, with disorganized chaos worse than usual, even factoring in that it's the first week of the semester. But numbers are up, I have about 13 for the networking subject and about 7 for the Silly Subject. What I don't have is a correct timetable, exact enrolment figures, and fun. What I also won't have in two weeks' time is a clueful unix-savvy counterpart in the central it services dept, because that fellow is throwing in the towel.

Not that I can fault him at all; the management and marketing hordes have grown like mushrooms in the wet, while we peons are being kept like mushrooms.

Apropos mushrooms, it's been wet enough for quite some mushrooms to grow in my backyard. Some look very similar to small Parasol but I won't try them.

[ published on Wed 16.01.2008 14:49 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Having two credit cards is fine. Paying them off in total every month is even better. Using them for big payments every now and then is convenient. But having done just that and transferring the (large) amount you owe on one to the other account hurts.

The hassle to get your money back out of the overpaid account is...priceless.

[ published on Sun 16.12.2007 09:43 | filed in still-not-king | ]

Toasting bread conducts more than 30mA.
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[ published on Sun 16.12.2007 09:01 | filed in still-not-king | ]

...bank, that is. I just bought this mobile contraption. Should get it around Wednesday. Test-driving it was fine except for the noncooling aircon which will be fixed before I get the car.

[ published on Mon 10.12.2007 18:00 | filed in still-not-king | ]

A bit over a week ago I mentioned that my washing machine has decided to die - well, to forget how to spin-dry, which amounts to the same. The off-balance detection was stuffed: it would start the motor in high-speed mode but switch off after <1s, repeat 3x, give up and hand me soaking clothes. (Same behaviour with an empty tub.)

The two-year warranty ran out a year ago (no surprise here). So I dismantled the machine and checked sundry other things (like inspecting/reseating the motor brushes) but couldn't find any mercury switch or other obvious means of detecting a bouncing tub. Accordingly, I couldn't fix it directly.

I have no precise idea how they detect an out-of-balance tub, except that the motor has a hall-effect rpm sensor which I think could work (assuming that the tub slows down and speeds up asymmetrically if it's wobbling). Net result of X hours of ripping apart, tracing wires and so on: all inspectables are fine but it still won't work. The only remaining part was the part-mechanical-part-electronic control board, and these things usually aren't cheap.

After a long search I figured out the proper part number (the fact that the machine is a rebadged Electrolux didn't make that search any easier), and would have been able to buy it online at various overseas retailers...for about $150-200..

Luckily ebay came to the rescue: somebody sold one as new-old-stock locally for $50. Add $26 for express postage, 10min for installation and I have a washing washer again. Very nice.

[ published on Wed 21.11.2007 16:32 | filed in still-not-king | ]

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