Can someone explain me?

Sometimes new software not only brings unneeded features, but also a better usability... htop for example. Since I have it I don't use the old top anymore. But something is still surprising me... How can I have a total CPU use of 100% when the single tasks added make only 8.6 + 7.2 + 1.3 + (9*0.7) = 23.4
Where are the remaining 76.6% ?

Typisch Tuebingen

Oder einfach Tuebisch? Eine lustige Liste, stimmt meistens!

Studiengebuehr in England

... Wahrscheinlich geht es doch nicht so gut dort, laut der Spiegel. Wir wissen schon, dass genau das gleich in Deutschland passieren wird. Mir sollte es egal sein, weil ich nicht mehr Student bin. Aber irgendwie denke ich, dass man keine erfolgreiches Wirtschaft heutzutage mit Dummkopfe baut. Ist nur meine Meinung.

Ugly but huge huge HUGE airplane

Seen on Airliners.net

Yes it flies!!! And yes this is a serious Boeing project! Awesome.

Le desastre des medias

Quand je vois la television ces jours je suis vraiment vraiment amer.
Rien que des images de guerres entre bateaux a marseille, du cinema hollywoodien quoi. Des gens qui se battent. Mais ou est donc le fond? Ou parle t-on des poissons? Qui s'interesse s'il y a encore des thons? Personne!

Riez les pecheurs, vous allez bien rire dans 20 ans! Le probleme c'est que la terre entiere aura perdu.

Ou s'arretera donc la connerie humaine? Entre la tele imbecile, les pecheurs imbeciles et les telespectateurs imbeciles, Greenpeace represente vraiment une exception de conscience.

La surpeche du thon

Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais je pense que cet article est juste (Le Monde) . Si les scientifiques assurent que les thons sont tres menaces, pourquoi serait-ce faux? Qui peut prouver scientifiquement le contraire?
Ca me revolte complement de lire ca, mais que faire? Et qu'est ce que l'on va faire, une fois qu'il n'y aura plus de thon?

John Grisham: The Street Lawyer

During these holidays, I finally took time to read. One of the books I read is The Street Lawyer from John Grisham, after an advice from a friend lawyer.

This is about a young successful lawyer of Washington D.C. - Michael Brock, already near to be a partner, is suddently taken in hostage by an homeless, and, searching for an explanation, comes to meet Mordecai Green, a lawyer for homeless. The 'Legal Clinic' of Washington D.C. really exists, actually. The more he learns about homeless peoples, Michael Brock decides to let his work in the big firm to become a lawyer for homeless people. To give a sense to his life.

What's good in this? What did I like especially in this book? Well it's difficult to say. Part of it has to do with the excellent style and writing skills of Grisham. He's really, really good. The surprising thing is that I didn't awaited such a critism of the american system and of capitalism.
There are some really big questions in this story. What are we making individually to help the poors? What are we doing to avoid that peoples come to live on the streets, and what are we making to bring them out of the streets?

Outside of showing the cliche that one can be happy with a minimum wage, the story shows the price to pay for financial wealth. And it's very expensive. The other part is about questioning, and accomplishment. How could I rebuild my life if I should start from zero again? What do I really want do in my life? Michael, by becoming a social lawyer not only rebuilds the life of poor people, he rebuilds his life, and that's one of the more interesting part of the book.

The homeless. They get almost no help from politicians, because they don't vote. Why caring about them? Grisham explains very well that an homeless is cheaper for the state and better for the society if he's in a shelter rather than in prison. And he's even more profitable to the society if he gets a job and a home! One can only think that we really live in a stupid world, where you need to lobby in order to obtain rights. But then, I should first ask myself what I'm doing to change this situation. Nothing.

Oh yeah, there is an intrigue in this book. With lawyers, conspiracies, etc. But this is not really the point. Actually, this is the least important part of the book.

I'm gonna read other books from Grisham, because he seems to be a really good writer.
And I'm gonna think about this book during some times. Or maybe reread it, it would be worth it.

Blogger update

Ralf wird froh, wenn er das lesen wird... Na ja, es war auch endlich Zeit. Schade das es nur beschraenkt geht. Ich frage mich auch wie es geht, die alte Artikeln auf diese neue Version von Blogger zu migrieren...

How it looks like to flight a plane

Sorry, I couldn't resist... I'm a little bit frustrated that I didn't had a fish-eye lense to take this photo...

Hear airport towers on your computer

A flight instructor gave us a nice tip yesterday during the theory class:
Some big airports, like Chicago O'Hare or Boston, are streaming their radio frequency (ground, tower, approach/departure) on the net.
A good link is LiveATC.net
Enjoy! But solid knowledges in ATC and aviation are necessary. This is a very good site for "aviation enthusiasts, student pilots, student air traffic controllers, flight simulation enthusiasts, FBO operators, airline operators, and anyone with an interest in aviation communications. "
(LiveATC.net)

That said, for me, poor French, it's very difficult to understand... I'm curious to see what will happen when I'll have to land in Stuttgart (EDDS) !

I am not worrying about my future as software engineer

When I see how much the processes are inefficient and wrong in most of the companies I have to deal with in my private life, I'm not worrying about my future as a software engineer.

Phone company: I move into a new apartment, they change my phone line to the new one, but the bills are still sent to my old address... This fucking phone company billed me 300 Euros for my move! And they believe I will buy any single service after that?

Electricity company: They sent the bill to the former lodger, and then wanted me to pay 4 times more than her. They simply didn't look at how much she was paying. I needed to phone them to get a more normal price.

The different train companies are completely unsynchronized together. There are tons of things to optimize, because most of them have no idea what IT can really bring. Most times IT projects are under-funded, under time pressure, and for a result have a poor quality that wouldn't be acceptable in any other industry.

If the computers stopped gaining any power tomorrow, I'm sure I would anyway be able to work until retirement, because there is still so much to do to polish all the bad softwares and IT processes... and yes, it's the case even in Germany! The regional trains are late 50% of the times and the big companies are completely disorganized... Let's stop this unsense!

Mein 1. Flugstunde ist vorbei!

... gerade heute um 10 Uhr. Es war einfach super! Was fuer ein merkwuerdiges Eindrueck, auf der linke Sitz zu sein...

A sad day for the rock

Syd Barrett is dead.

A bug in a TFT screen

... Yes, a bug is in my screen! A real, living bug! I don't know when it will die, in the middle of my screen... shit!

Before there was the CRT screen. The real screen was an hermetic box without air, so nothing (and no bugs) could come in. But the TFT screens don't need anymore an empty and completely hermetic box. So a very little bug went under my screen. I can see it but I can't touch it. I even tried to kill it while it was under the border of the screen :( Now I have this little moving thing under my screen and it's gonna staying here. I can't remove it without opening my screen. Bad design - new technologies, new problems.

Bravo les bleus!

(image www.lemonde.fr)

On est tres fiers de vous!

I want to go there again!

Sorry to post 2 times about the same topic, but I can't resist:
Venezia on Google Maps.

Anyway, try to find the runway on the photo... It's pretty detailled, but a little bit old...
Oh, and I found out that the restaurant where we ate was at the Grand Canal! I didn't even realized because it was so peaceful there...

Une impression d'irreel

Petit poste tres condense et un peu froid pour une experience unique que je ne suis pas pret d'oublier:

Hier l'aeroclub de Herrenberg a organise un vol pour Venise... Aller-retour en un jour, avec 2 heures et demi de vol dans chaque direction. Je me suis inscrit comme simple passager.


L'aller fut relativement tranquille, malgre une visibilite horizontale tres faible. Survol des alpes, passage a l'ouest d'Innsbruck. Les Alpes, spectacle incroyable depuis une altitude de 35oo metres environ...




Apres arrivee en Italie, direction Padova puis la lagune de Venezia. Absolument splendide. L'approche sur l'aerodrome du Lido nous fait passer vraiment pres de Venezia, c'est absolument incroyable comme spectacle!


Un membre de l'aeroclub de Venezia nous fait une petite visite guidee avec la place San-Marco puis le pont du Rialto...


Tres touristique mais 300 metres plus loin il nous emmene dans un restaurant totalement cache mais si sympathique et typique...


Tres bon repas, on repart pour le Lido et ne ratons pas l'occasion d'une baignade dans la mer Adriatique :)


Depart tout juste dans les temps, une fois en l'air nous avons des problemes avec un controlleur italien pas vraiment competent. On reste a 1000 pieds (300 metres) d'altitude pendant trop longtemps, ca va etre tres dur de grimper au dessus des montagnes. Juste au dernier moment nous obtenons autorisation de prendre de l'altitude. Malheureusement ca ne suffit pas et nous devons nous rabbattre sur une vallee.




Tout le long de ce chemin a travers les Alples nous restons sous les nuages en s'orientant suivant les reliefs et divers objets du sol. L'orage menace tout le long a notre droite, a gauche les montagnes sont trop hautes... Zigzag entre les montagnes jusqu'a Innsbruck. Les controlleurs autrichiens sont d'une competence et sympathie inimaginable, ils nous laissent survoler l'aeroport d'Innsbruck. Magnifique!
Prise d'altitude puis passage juste a cote du Zugspitze, puis arrivee sur l'Allemagne. Le soleil nous retrouve a ce moment avec un magnifique arc-en-ciel.


Retour calme a Poltringen vers 20:40.

Ségolène Royal

Article très intéressant, du Figaro qui plus est !

Silence

J'aime mon nouvel appartement : en une nuit, je n'ai entendu que le bruit des cloches de l'église. Autant dire que j'ai dormi comme je ne l'avais pas fait depuis longtemps !

The Simpsons revisited

The Simpsons with real-life actors. Funny video on Google Video. And if you look at the right sidebar, you surely will understand how I found this video...