krasse-abgeher.de

[Update: Mittlerweile haben sich die Dosenfischer dazu zu Wort gemeldet. Die Antwort findet Ihr unten.]

Es war einmal, da gab es ein Hobby namens Geocachen und es gab 2 Leute, die sich berufen fühlten, darüber zu reden und zu singen. Und man sah, daß es gut war. Denn sie boten ihre Werke im sog. Internet an und ein jeder konnte ihnen lauschen.

Doch nicht nur dort - nein, auch führte ihr Weg sie in den hohen Norden, wo sie ihre Kunst - wenig professionell, aber sehr unterhaltsam - an den Mann brachten.

Dann hab ich mich länger nicht mehr mit den Dosenfischern beschäftigt, weil ich einfach das Interesse an eben jenem Podcast verloren hab, wodurch u.a. der Besuch eines Megaevents und die daraus folgende Ernüchterung, über die Zusammensetzung der GC-Szene im Allgemeinen, beigetragen haben (ja, das ist bewußt verallgemeinert - schlagt mich doch :P ).

Und heute stoß ich dann zufällig auf das MegaEvent "Dosenfischen im Ruhrtal"[1] und stelle fest, daß die Dosenfischer dort auch wieder ein Konzert geben. So weit, so gut. Geilerweise muss man aber jetzt eines von 1000 Tickets, zum Preis von 5 Euro kaufen! Und ich dachte nur.... WTF?!

Also ich weiß nicht genau was es ist, aber ich vermute es ist eine Mischung aus Größenwahn und Kommerz - anders kann ich mir das nicht erklären, denn ich glaube kaum, daß Location & Equiptment 5000 Euro kosten. Kann natürlich sein - fällt dann aber auch wieder in die erste Kategorie. Naja - damit sind sie jetzt auf jeden Fall komplett Geschichte und ich um ein WTF reicher.

---

Hier die Antwort/Aufklärung der Dosenfischer dazu:
Moin in die Runde,

wir sind, wie fast immer bei unseren Konzerten, eingeladen worden, dort zu spielen. Wir haben zugesagt und freuen uns sehr drauf. 

Wir bekommen dafür, wie schon angesprochen wurde, lediglich ein Bett und etwas zu essen. Dafür sagen wir Danke.

Der Eintritt für das Konzert wird helfen, das Event zu finanzieren. Niemand steckt sich etwas in die Tasche.

Du kannst, wenn Du magst, mal beim Orga-Team anfragen, wie genau ihr Finanzierungsplan aussieht und ich bin sicher, sie werden Dir das alles etwas näher erläutern. 

Auf unserer Homepage steht zu dem Thema Geld nichts, weil wir damit einfach nichts zu tun haben. Wir sind Gäste des Events, als Geocacher, die auch auf der Bühne stehen und Lieder singen. (Übrigens - nur zur Sicherheit und für die Transparenz -  haben wir auch an den Kalendern nichts verdient. Mehr als das: Wir haben nicht einen einzigen Cent im Zusammenhang mit den Kalendern bewegt. Lediglich bei den CDs bleibt etwas übrig, dass wir für die neue CD beiseite gelegt haben.)

Liebe Grüße vom großen See,

der sandmann / thom*

Yesterday I ran into a advertising booth of the so-called Büsos (i.e. Civilrights movement solidarity). While I was waiting for my train at Aachen central station, a girl walked over and asked me, about my opinion on how long it will take us to reach the Mars by fusion-powered spaceships. I was like "WTF, you gotta be kiddin' me!", but as I was on the phone, I first finished my call and then, in appreciation of a nice and hilarious discussion, I returned, to ask her about that stuff. As soon, as I showed interest in her topics, she switched the topic from nuclear fusion to a possible war in the middle east. Seriously - not joking here.

So - she went on, how the USA and GB are trying to initiate a war in Syria and Iran. She showed me some charts of all the naval units stationed in the Strait of Hormuz and talked about nuclear warheads being deployed on carriers, but the best part was yet to come:

What is the reason the US & GB undertake all these efforts? One might think the control of the oil reserves and political influence might be the reasons, but that is far off. The real reason is, so they could pull Russia and China into this war and put them under economical pressure. And why would they want a thing like that? Exactly! So neither Russia, nor China might fill the huge vacuum of power, created by the western financial system breaking down. And the only way to avoid that, is by putting money and effort into technological advancement.

...

You gotta be kiddin me......

I must admit, I was really amused and baffled, at how much bullshit two people could talk in 10 minutes. So - anyway... then I started discussing with them. Asked some critical questions here, doubted some of their great graphs there and brought up a scenario which vaporized their arguments. At first, they didn't really know what to say, but after another 10 minutes, just when I said: "Okay, let's take a look at another example...." the guy (who had joined us, somewhere along the discussion) interrupted me rudely: "No, I'm sorry, we have to talk to other people as well. Here, take our newspaper. Everything's in there. Bye". Yeah - believe it or not, he just fled from further discussions... I mean .... come on! You have been trained for situations like these right? Simply giving up seems somehow lame.

Whatever - I got myself a snack to celebrate my inner victory and when I returned, I saw all three of them standing around their booth lonely, not talking to anybody... yeah - pretty much people to talk to these days.... Idiots.

Oh - and one of my favorite theories was the one, where they said, that the climatic changes had nothing to do with CO2 output around the globe, but was more likely connected to changes in the sun's activities.... sometimes I'd really like to punch somebody in the face, when I hear bullshit like this. I expected to hear about the nazis and the holocaust next, but maybe the discussion ended to soon, for reaching that topic.

Coming to a conclusion, I would say that they are quixotic idiots you read too much of the combination of Fefes blog and "Das Kapital". But at least it was fun, destroying their theories and theses. I hope to see them again soon, then I will bring more counter-arguments and DESTROY THEM :D

Yesterday I updated Thunderbird to v9.0.1 and everything worked fine. Today when I restarted it, it wouldn't show me my message pane. From the settings I could see, that the accounts where still there, but the application refused to display them.

After a bit of googling I found some guys with the same problem and even though they said, there was no solution yet, I found a possible  way to fix it and actually it really worked. Yay! Since I'm really annoyed about google mostly returning open questions and unanswered forum posts, I decided to quickly write down how to do it.

1. Exit Thunderbird
2. Back up your Thunderbird profile folder (on MacOS "˜/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/<cryptic foldername>")
3. Go into profile folder and remove or rename  the file "folderTree.json"
4. Restart Thunderbird
5. Profit! (at least for me)

I assume the problem occured, since my HD was filled up the top and there was no space to save the profile properly when exiting Thunderbird last time. Anyway - that solved the problem for me. Hope it helps some of you guys ;)

Over the last day I noticed that my internet connection vanished from time to time, but as my router is really crappy, I always blamed it on the sucker. Just until I noticed that firefox was the only app having problems, as pidgin and thunderbird still worked. A restart of firefox helped, but it wouldn't last long.

Today it reached the point where firefox wouldn't load anything at all and instead would just freeze every single time. When I killed it via the task manager, I noticed that firefox's cpu usage went over the top. First I thought it might have been an addon problem, but disabling them didn't help a bit.

So I used chrome to do a little research. After many false alerts, I finally found someone who not only had, the exact same problem, but also had found a solution for it =)

The trick is to dig deep into the firefox config and reduce the max. http connections from 256 to 48. I don't know where the exact border lies, but with 48 it works fine for me and firefox stops bothering me. So - after all - challenge completed =)

Sorry little blog - it's been quite a while since I visited you last time, as I must admit that facebook and twitter are quite satisfactory, regarding the little, quick commentary on day-to-day business. Although - now I'm back again, talking 'bout a topic that well deserves more than only few lines:

The long and lonesome days of drabness and tristesse are gone - here comes the new time! Or, to make a short story even shorter, the season break is over. Yesterday the new How I met your mother season aired in the US and, to fulfill my heart with even more joy, it started with two episodes full of laughter, joy and emotion, which make this show so dear to me.

Over the last years I met many people who said that HIMYM had been great in it's early days, but lost it's quality and humor. Actually I don't think that is what happened. It's true, the series changed over time, but as I see it, it didn't change in negative way. I'd much rather say it developed over time; it grew up. From a very funny, yet "simple" sitcom, to an awesome story 'bout a a couple of friends and the story of how they make it through their life in NY. Of course it's still a sitcom - no doubt 'bout that - but where other people complain 'bout lacking jokes and how lame Barney became, I see a change of focus from purely funny to funny and yet emotional and empathic, sometimes sad and almost always heart-touching. And that's the main reason, why I love this show so very much. I suppose there are more points, why it reaches me in so many ways, like being nearly the same age as the characters, etc, but most of all, it's because I can feel with them. When the laugh, when they cry, when they love and when they're desperate. And that's the great different to The BigBang Theory, too! I also love that show, but simply for the nerdy characters and jokes. It's not really about feelings. I mean - yeah - I know there are multiple love stories going on and I enjoy watching them, but it doesn't touch me, as HIMYM does - there I feel kinda like home. And now I can finally can home again - every week until next year's March. But until then, there are many weeks to come and many stories to be told, yay!

OMG! Gerad beinahe gestorben mein Laufzettel für die Prüfung weg war. 1h gesucht: Wohnung, Auto, Büro. Völlig verzweifelt - Dann Idee: ich hab am Donnerstag wichtige Unterlagen sortiert. Vielleicht ist er darunter geraten... Siehe da: ganz unten im Schublad, unter jede Menge Papieren isser... Wollte längst im Bett sein und nochmal meine Unterlagen angeschaut haben. Fazit: 1Stunde suchen; 1Stunde weniger Schlaf; Adrenalin für ne ganze Woche.... ich bin fix und fertig!

Last week I finally got to play Heavy Rain on the PS3. I was really looking forward to this, 'cause I had already played Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy) as it was called in the US. Thinking of this days, I remember a really innovative gameplay and a intruiging atmosphere, but also a story that drifted from sweet to crappy, the further you played. Another thing which was quite annoying, was that you could die quite simply. However I was confident that Heavy Rain would overcome those setbacks. Here's what happend (be aware that the review contains minor spoilers, so if you haven't played the game by now and still want to, don't read on):

Sooooooooooo - everything is ready for a great gaming night: PS3: check! Giant tv: check! Heavy Rain: check! Bad weather and darkness outside: check! And finally: supplies for a long night: check! With eager anticipation I insert the disk, switch on the PS3, select the game and I'm on my way..... to nowhere! "The latest version of the game is required." - "Alright - download that stupid patch!" - 20 minutes later (downloading and installing) I finally see the loading screen and can dive into the game.

Actually it's more like you are pushed directly into the world of Heavy Rain. No long explanations, but from the first second you're drawn into the gameworld and are confronted with the first tutorial moves. "Wait a minute.... why are the subtitles in Portugese?! I switched them off!" I did - but the game - obviously - ignored me the first time. Great start.... I turn them off again and this time it works. Some hours later I would discover, that this was not the only setting the game had changed against my will.

But back to the game itself. As I said - right from the start I was drawn into the game world. This is not only accomplished by astonishing graphics but also by the little details, that make the game feel realistic: You get up from bed, take a shower, brush your teeth and then go down and have a coffee while you're waiting for your wife and kids come home. It works. I believe that the guy on the screen (actually me :D) has a really nice life! This does not stay this way for a long time, of course ;)

What annoyes me in these first minutes, is the sometimes strange sounding voice acting. When looking for his kid in a crowded mall, my character sound's like he's reading his son's name from a sheet of paper, not like a troubled father in fear for his child. But it's not only the feeling behind the voice. It's the pronunciation of the words. Normally if you call out a name searching, you would expect the voice to go up at the end... it does not. Okay you screwed that guys... anyway! Let's go on...

Okay the situation changes and you find yourself torn out of the happy world from before and pushed into the dark and depressing setting  of the main part of the game. This atmosphere is really intense and I like being part of it. It's no easy living fun game, but I didn't expect that... The next puzzling thing is a blackout of the main character. You just find yourself somewhere else with no idea whatsoever, what just happened. Whoah.... okay - will be explained later of course.

The scene ends and I suddenly find myself with a new character. No explanation - nothing. But after a few moments you get to know some details about the guy. Seems interesting. Story continues great. Uh - first action scene! Wow - that is pretty hard, especially if all of a sudden some buttons flash on the middle of the screen and you have only split seconds to react to them aaaaaaand you don't know which button on your controller is which (since I don't play PS regularly). Ok - situation is over. On we go.

Wow - a third character. Let's see what's up with this guy. An FBI agent - nice! But WTF! Okay - this is supposed to be a dark, scary and mysterious game. What is he doing here with his cyber scifi glasses? OMG Quantic Dream - REALLY?! That sucks, but I suppose I have to live with it. The rest is business as usual. Nice story, great setting.

As you advance through the story, you really feel like your decisions and actions matter to how the story continues. I can not say how strong the player's influence is (since I played it only once - I will come to that later), but it continues rather logically according to your choices. A fourth and final character is thrown into the game (without giving you a clue how she is related to all the action) and many red herrings and puzzling scenes unveil to the player, but most of the time it's exciting and you want to go on and solve the big mystery.

After a couple of hours I get to know which button corresponds with which symbol and some time later I even know the different meanings of flashing, shaking and still symbols on my screen. Still it is very tricky to finish the action sequences correctly and I fear more than once that I might lose an important fight. And yep - that's exactly what happens. On of my characters dies. Okay - what now? Nothing obviously - just switching to the next one. Strange.

The voice acting is still a little bit stiff in some situations and so are your characters, when you wish them to be more emotional, but after all the story and the setting, along with my distinct curiosity, keep pushing me forward and forward. Woah - okay - here goes my second character - he's not dead but it seems he's out of order for the rest of the game.

Towards the end the story tumbles and falls at some points and I feel like there a some unfinished tales waiting to be told (but since QD has canceled all planned DLC episodes, I guess they will never be answered). One thing that really annoyed me are the flashbacks at the end. I hated those things Fahrenheit and I don't like them here. They somehow pull you of the story and - at least for me - don't work as expected. Anyway - the end feels strange (okay - I got a bad ending at first, and then replayed the last chapter to change it).

After 10 hours of playing, I'm finished with the game (including both of my endings). It was a cool experience (at least most of the time). Controls where not always that great and after dying in the last action sequence, I noticed that the game had set the controller options to expert. I'm sure I set it to medium and along with the fucked up subtitles at the beginning, I begin to suspect what made the action sequences so damn hard.

A major part of the game is replaying it and trying out different choices and actions than before, to see how they influence the game. So - will I replay it? No, I won't. Why not? Because I already know, who the Origami Killer is. Sure it would be nice to see the other character survive, but that would mean a looooot of time for ... yeah - I don't really know what for! As I said, I already know the identity of the killer and that's the most interesting part (for me!).

I also watched a video about the one DLC episode available and I had to laugh (thanks AGo ^^) quite hard. The whole episode is not longer than 15 minutes (but of course there are different outcomes again). Man - Quantic Dream. I don't really know, how you manage to screw this great stuff up, towards the end, EVERY TIME.

Okay - some final words: Heavy Rain is a really great game and is, in more than point, much better than it's predecessor. The atmosphere is quite dense and the story captivates. There are some glitches, like strange voice acting, tricky action sequences, not fitting scifi stuff (but only very few this time) and some plotholes. Anyway, it's still pretty amazing and I enjoyed the time spent with the game. So, if you are looking for a great adventure and are a lucky PS3 owner, I can absolutely recommend, getting this game (even if you only rent it for a weekend ^^).

Sadly Quantic Dream announced that their new title is going to be a scifi story... oh boy - they do it again =(

I need a tv-out adapter so I can play all the sweet stuff on my monitor :D

The title describes exactly what just happend - but let's start from the beginning, shouldn't we?

So - some days ago GameOne released another Lauschangriff-Podcast, this timing talking about Gregor's favourite stuff: 16bit rpgs! I really love this podcast and listen to it in my car, when driving longer distances or at night, when I'm about to sleep. Of course I did it with this episode as well and yesterday the talked about Chrono Trigger - an oldschool rpg on the SNES. Since I was a real fan of Final Fantasy Adventure (actually a part of the Seiken Densetsu series) on the Gameboy back then, I decided to go and try Chrono Trigger on my iPhone SNES emulator (SNES A.D.+) - yes - it's jailbroken, bitches!

As with this emulator you can use a WiiMote and even the WiiMote ClassicController the control is great (without it pretty sucks, since you hide a large part of the screen and it's not that responsive) and it went really well. I just finished a kind of larger part of the game and thought to myself: "Ok, after this you can go to bed". So - I returned to the city and was greeted with the words above... well - actually with the first part. Then the emulator shut down, I saw a 1% mark on my battery status and the screen went black.... NOOOOOOOOOOO! God damnit! When did I save last time?! *sigh* Okay - I will play this part again and THEN I will go to bed.... and yes - I'm currently waiting for my iPhone to recharge and boot up again... oh dear... here it comes again!

But you won't fool me again. Since twitter import worked fine from the beginning and NOW facebook import started to work, this blog entry should be on facebook latest in 30 minutes.

Let's see if I'm right!

Hey folks,

on Friday I finally signed up for a twitter account. Of course I have to import this stuff into facebook. Since I was really pissed about how long facebook took, to import my blog, I also switched the blog-entry import to twitter!

It now checks every 30 minutes for a new entry and then tweets about the new entry (including a link of cours), which then should be posted on facebook via the facebook twitter app. So - let's see if that works =)

Wish me well!

What a wonderful day! The sun is shining, Switzerland is about to beat Spain in the world cup and I've just been to the Telekom shop, where I preordered my new iPhone :D After 2 1/2 years I finally get UMTS, GPS and a really sweet design in my mobile, along with all the other great features, Apple implemented into the new device. The clerk said that they won't have enough phones to ship all on 24th, but it should be here within two weeks. I'm so excited - this is like Christmas and birthday alltogether.
Finally I can start counting days =)

Today is the day! I'm going to Poland to a conference on information technology in biomedicine and Im' pretty excited, since it's my first "external" conference. My flight departs in 40 minutes and right now I'm sitting at the gate .... blogging ;)
Too bad Poland does not belong to the Euro zone, so I'll have to exchange money once I'm there.
The conference location looked real nice, since it's a hotel in an old palace. The only downside is that it's located in a small village right in the middle of nowhere. At least there should be a train station. I'll let you know, when I'm there. Wish me well ;)

Okay - boarding is about to start so I have to turn off my phone. See ya!




ITIB 2010

Yay - the first game of the German national team ever that I enjoy live at Tivoli Aachen!
It's a huge party here and everyone is celebrating the upcoming world cup and at the entrance everyone in the audience gets a free Team Germany scarf :D

Our seats are in the southern block of the stadium and we're about 5 meters from the field! Marvellous seats :D

The German team just entered the field and was celebrated frenetically. Everyone around here is totally going crazy :D It's gonna be great!
Auf geht's Deutschland schießt ein Tor!