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...

Mein neues Spielzeug

Zwischen das und mein Umzug habe ich sehr wenig Zeit fuer mein Blog...

The 10 Worst Corporations of 2005

If half of that is true, then no surprise that a lot of peoples hate capitalism...

The exterminators, or how to build good software

The IEEE Spectrum is really a high-level magazine about technology. And has very interesting articles.
This one, subject of a Slashdot story: An English company that make software with very few bugs. For critical-purposes sofware. When you build a sofware to make big money-transactions, control a plane or a power plant, you simply can't make errors.

The methods explained in the article are sure valuable and usable for every project, including open-source; and although the programming language specified (Spark) is commercial, there are a lot of open-source alternatives. Like Eiffel (smarteiffel as GNU project), or OCaml. Some formal checkers are available too.

Another cool software...

... that it's not possible to compile without messing up my system with tons of externs library. Maybe that's good that I don't spend time on such games.

Dan Simmons about good writing

Dan Simmons explains in this essay a few rules (first defined by Mark Twain) of good writing, and why professional writing is hard.

Le 4x4 c'est pas bien!

Texte de l'autocollant:
"Je participe activement au DEREGLEMENT DU CLIMAT"

The next green revolution

A nice article on wired, or why environmentalism can/has to be oriented forward, and should not reject progress. No real new thing in this article, but a good introduction for curious people.

The blog given as link is very interesting too.

Schlechte Architektur

Der Architekt, der unser Wohnheim kreiert hat, hat sicherlich nie in einer WG gewohnt. So bloed soll man sein, um die Kueche direkt neben die Zimmern zu bauen.

Searching for an interesting job?

Trolltech is searching for developers for their new office in Berlin!

Private Joke (fr)

Vous la connaissez probablement:

Heisenberg se fit un jour arrêter pour excès de vitesse. Le policier, effaré, lui crie :
— Mais vous êtes fou, savez vous à quelle vitesse vous rouliez ?
Et Heisenberg de répondre :
— Non, mais je sais très bien où je suis.