The long term effects of the outrage over the NSA, Prism, Tempora scandals

I am currently forcing myself to write this. "Why?", you may ask. Simply, because it matters to me. As moot and untelling as the message of this article may be, I want to voice my opinion about the subject of the privacy scandal, espionage, Prism, the NSA and whatever else there is to say about it. The Brits were exposed for something similar right afterwards with Tempora. Sadly, I have no illusions that the Germans have a similar organisation.
The media has been full of it of late ever since Edward Snowden made us aware of the scandal. Just run the keywords "Prism" and "NSA" through your favourite search engine and you will find plenty of material.

I, personally, think that the man has balls to do this and should for all intents and purposes be declared a modern day hero. I am no lawyer or in any way well versed in these matters, but what the NSA has done must violate several laws and/or human rights of citizens in the Western World.
Unfortunately for him, I don't think it will matter in the long run. I have long lost any faith in the people supposedly trying to protect me. As a German citizen, I am already overwhelmed that our chancelloress even addressed the issue. And then that was that.

This is the harrowing conclusion, I have to draw yet again. I am apathetic to all these events. One scandal after the other. Everytime we find out more about how the government or the industry tries to take away our privacy, monitors our every move, decides, what is best for us... and I sadly stopped caring. It has been shown again and again. No matter what we do, the effect is minimal. It will happen anyways, slowly but surely.

We have a vote to democracy and we can "threaten" with not voting for the people in power. So what? The political parties are all the same and their inofficial credo is "Stay in power! For as long as we possibly can!" So we essentially just exchange one egomaniac for another. Once the deed is done outside of our country all bets are off anyway. Have you recently seen a Western political figure being tried in Den Haag? Without saying names, certain politicians should defend themselves for starting a war under false pretences that ultimately proved to be wrong.

Take again the Edward Snowden case. He has done something big. He exposed one of the governmental organs of the self-proclaimed stalwart of democracy and righteousness as a violator of two fundamental human rights (the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression). One would expect that he would be protected by the Western World's judicial system for this...
Well, in actual effect, he first had to hide in Hong Kong, a part of China. Now they are really renowned for respecting the Human Rights... not. Now he is ogling with stays in Russia, Ecuador or Venezuela. Several other "stalwarts" of democracy.

What did I say earlier? Oh yes, no matter what you do, the effect is minimal. I haven't seen an obvious change in the way things are handled now. Everyone's up and arms, but it will die down, everything will go back to normal, and the governments will go back to spying again. The thought fills me with so much joy, that I will probably go and drown myself in booze. Good night.

Deutsche Bahn auf Twitter

Manchmal frage ich mich, ob die Deutsche Bahn, [Sarkasmus]eines meiner Lieblingsunternehmen[/Sarkasmus], den Sinn hinter Kommunikation mit den Kunden versteht oder einfach nur andere Dienstleistungsunternehmen nachäfft. Frei nach dem Sinne: Was die machen, ist für uns bestimmt auch nicht schlecht.

Ich werde demnächst mit einem IC von Köln nach Hamburg fahren. Vier Stunden insgesamt also. Das ist eine sehr lange Zeit, um nichts zu tun. Wenn ich den neuen ICE nehme, hat man natürlich serienmäßig einen Stecker zwischen zwei Sitzen, bei einem IC war ich mir aber nicht mehr so sicher.

Nach längerer und vergeblicher Internetsuche nach Informationen über diesen spezifischen Zug, biss ich dann in den leicht säuerlich angefaulten Apfel und meldete mich bei Twitter an, um mir die Zeit und das Geld beim Verharren in der Bahntelefonkundendienstwarteschleife* zu sparen und weil ich mich nicht wieder bei Facebook anmelden wollte.

Also meldete ich mich bei Twitter an, wurde Follower von irgendwelchen Sachen, nur um zum Ende der Konfiguration zu kommen und brauchte ca. 5 Minuten, um herauszufinden, wie Twitter eigentlich funktioniert. Dann konnte ich endlich meinen "tweet" abgeben.

@DB_Bahn Haben der IC 2410 und IC 2417 von Köln nach Flensburg Steckdosen? Danke.

So far, so good. Jetzt war ich gespannt, was passierte und siehe da, innerhalb von ca. 10 Minuten bekam ich auch eine Antwort. Ich dachte mir: "Hut ab! Chapeau! Chapeau! Da haben sie endlich mal etwas Nützliches, um mit den Kunden zu kommunizieren." Leider zu früh gefreut.

@Nebelhom Mindestens an den Tischplätzen sind Steckdosen. Bitte fragen Sie das Zugpersonal, ob es noch mehr davon gibt. /d

So gut diese Idee des Twitter Services auch ist, ist diese Antwort recht nutzlos. Davon abgesehen, dass ich schon weiß, dass an Tischen Steckdosen sind im IC (was das Personal nicht wissen kann), gibt mir diese Antwort das Gefühl als wüssten sie es nicht besser als ich. Somit bin ich genauso schlau wie vorher.

Was ich mir wohl erhofft hatte, war eine informiertere Meinung. Man könnte denken, das Bahnpersonal sollte Informationen über einzelne Abteile des Zuges parat haben. So etwas wie, "an allen Tischen jeweils zwei und jede 6 Reihe hat eine Steckdose", wäre ideal gewesen. So bin ich mir immer noch unsicher, ob ich denn eine Steckdose auf meiner Reise ergattern kann, weil ich keinen Schimmer habe, wie viele dort denn genau zu finden sind.

Und schon bin ich wieder bei meinem alten Gefühl, dass mich immer beschleicht, wenn ich mit der Bahn fahre. Dieses warme, unwohle Gefühl in der Magengrube, das mich zu Fragen verleitet wie: "Wird die Verspätung diesmal weniger als 30 Minuten sein?" "Übertreffen sie diesmal ihren eigenen Rekord von 3 Std. Verspätung?" "Welchen Grund gibt es diesmal, dass ich meine Reservierung nicht wahrnehmen kann?" und zu guter Letzt eine neue Frage "Werde ich in der Lage sein, in diesem Zug eine Steckdose zu bekommen?"...

* Dafür liebe ich die deutsche Sprache. Man kann einfach Wörter erfinden und jeder weiss, was gemeint ist :)

Why is the public opinion of female beauty so far away from reality?

Recently, the local media have been full with news about the local reality "Find your next great, amazing top model"-show. So much, in fact, that I shall spew my little piece to this ordeal.

Personally, I wish they would stop that altogether. I do not know about the shows themselves, but I assume they are pretty much like any other casting show. From what my wife tells me, a charity counteracting cruelty to animals should get active there.

What comes out of that format, however, makes me worry about my and coming generations of young women. Essentially, they advocate an obscene thinness bordering on anorexia that puts many girls under pressure of becoming that body ideal.

In my tastes for women, I would call myself a typical guy and aside from the random outliers that always exist (in "both" directions), most of my friends are typical guys. When talking about topics related to this one, not a single one of them finds these women attractive. Not one (!?!). Amusing phrases such as "This looks horrible! Do you reckon it's contagious?" or "Ah well, this one won't survive the next winter." are far more common comments than straight out admiration for their great body. Quoting another friend of mine: "I find it hard to believe that men find this attractive. Only fashion designers must do as they have hundreds of walking, animated coat hangers at their disposal who carry something around they care about. Their clothes." (I disarmed that quote a little. There were a couple more curses and insults in there)

All these borderline comments aside, I worry about the message that these shows send to women. I can't imagine the pressure they have daily to conform to a body ideal achieved by women who hunger themselves to something that is medically most likely unhealthy and who are then for the magazine covers photoshopped to an even smaller size. How can young, impressionable women get down to this size, when even the professionals need digital help to get to such a shape? Ever since that "little faux-pas" with Demi Moore's cover page, we all know that Photoshop is an integral part of photographs in magazines.

I won't go into the medical effects. Only suffice it to say that Barbie, another one of those apparent men's wet dreams if real, would apparently be unable to stand. She would just fall flat on her face every time she tried to stand up.

I just wish that women would take the opinions of the people around them (not necessarily their parents) a little more serious. That way they would save themselves a lot of unnecessary hunger-filled dreams and get a little bit more quality out of their lives while still meeting Mr. Right.

Learning French

I've been learning French for quite some time now and I have come to a point where a typical French course doesn't really bring me any further. Yes, I can study and pass the tests, but about a month later I will have forgotten the majority of the vocabulary again and the grammar will not come as easily as I thought it would.

I'm trying various things to improve this rather sad affair with a plethora of approaches. If someone else has got any other good ideas, please feel free to use the commentary section below.

Currently, to improve my ability to talk about my specialist field (i.e. chemistry), I have been 1) reading French chemical literature (if you do not have access to it, it is rather hard to come by I am afraid) 2) Reading chemistry articles in English and explain to the world in general what is going on in the article... in French. 3) Practise presentations that I have given at some point in my life, but in French.

So far this is going well, as I learn topic-related vocabulary all the time, because I have to. With general broad French that is a problem, because I do not feel the need to look up words. If I talk about a general topic to myself, I tend to go around in circles only using the words I know without learning anything new. The problem here is that they are not new topics that I think of and I have re-visited them on occasion before.

The solution I came up with so far, is 1) read French novels and newspapers. This is for passive understanding. Unfortunately, the passive vocabulary does not readily enter my active one. As a consequence there is 2) reading articles and newspapers in English or German and again tell myself, what has been happening in these articles. In addition, there is 3) finding topics that will come up again and again, such as talking about my CV in an interview or describing one's personality and write the answers out in English. Once that is done, I do not translate word for word, but note down the words that I don't know and remember them. Afterwards, I talk about the topics I prepared.

Improving listening comprehension is the easiest one. My wife and I own several DVD box sets of TV series. Many of them have a French audio channel et voilà, practising listening comprehension has become easier.

As a consequence, I speak, listen or read French almost every single minute on my own and I get the feeling that it is improving, although I must say it is quite a lot of effort. Of course, there is also the chance to go to places where they speak French, but unfortunately these chances are few and far in between. At best, I find them to be add-ons to the core rather than a part of it, which is a pity as a language is supposed to be spoken in an interactive setting. My experience with other foreign languages has taught me, however, that speaking it in such a situation comes with confidence. I guess all I am currently doing is boosting my confidence, so that I am ready once a "real" situation rolls round.

Becoming a Reader

Well written novels are a joy to read. What I recently found out is, that well written novels are a joy to read "out loud", as well. But let's start at the beginning.

My wife suffers from travelling sickness, i.e. whenever she is in a moving vehicle as a passenger for a certain while and in her case can see outside, she starts to feel queasy in the stomach and may even be sick. How long this takes depends on the circumstances. Generally, jerky driving style and crowdedness catalyse the process, one might say. The strongest catalyst of them all, however, is reading or watching something, like a film or so. Thus, she is condemned to just stand there and wait while wondering when she will be sick.

Making matters worse, she has to take the bus on several mornings per week to get to work... in rush hour. The procedure is always the same. Bus is never on time. One generally arrives when three or four should have been there already. Consequence many people, traffic jams, you get the idea. Obviously this is not very pleasant as you might imagine.

So I had an idea. You probably have guessed it by now. I own a headset, there are several recording programs out there. Some free of charge. My mp3 player is hardly in use nowadays. Therefore, I decided to record myself while reading a book out loud and put it on the mp3 player for her to listen to.

I started out with a short book that she liked, Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". When I read this book, I was not used to recording myself and I was quite shy in the process. The result is a very monotonous drone of my voice. Maybe it also had something to do with the fact that I didn't like the book much, I don't know.

As the second book, I chose Terry Pratchett's "Mort" and now that I have gone past the weirdness of hearing my own voice recorded, I am really starting to enjoy it. Anyone who knows the book can now try to imagine the voice he would give Death. I think after another couple of sessions, I will need to change my vocal chords ;). The Klatchians fell victim to my bad Indian accent as I have no Arab one in my repertoire.
My main problem at the moment still is to a) remember what voice I have given to characters that do not appear often and b) find the right tone of voice. Very often it happens that I say something with a booming voice only to follow it up with a  "mumbled Mort."

She loves it, though, so I can still improve my little charade. It's fun while it lasts. I wonder what other books I will read for her... 

Contributing to Mozilla

I guess, it's time now to talk about an activity that I have been doing for quite some time. Since almost a year, I am a contributor to Mozilla's Automated Testing Team. I've been learning all this stuff about Python programming, but I didn't find a real way to use it properly. Anyone who followed my blog (I doubt there is such a person as I am not actively promoting it) will know that I had a couple of semi-useless projects on the go, but these all died down for one reason or another.

In the end, I became aware that Mozilla is an Open Source project and aside from the core developers who are employed full-time, anyone is invited to join. I was quite sceptical at first, but once I figured out how to use IRC, I was ready to go (Now it feels odd to think that at one point I didn't know how to ;) ).

For anyone who is willing to improve his skills and is not afraid to be thrown in at the deep end, it is a truly awesome experience! From day one, I was welcomed and everyone had a lot of patience. There are a lot of online resources and when you're completely stuck, you can always go and speak to someone on the IRC channels. I first made my way through Bugs Ahoy! until I figured out how to use Bugzilla and at some point, I was shoved towards various sites on Github to help out on there.

Because it is such a big project not only entailing Firefox and Thunderbird, but several other aspects, as well, there is quite a variety of programming languages being used such as JavaScript, Python, HTML/CSS, Java, or C++. So if you really want to learn something new, there is a lot of opportunities to practice it within the community, as well.

All in all, I am glad I took the step and got involved. There is no pressure and everyone can contribute as much or as little as they want. I am quite proud to say that I have contributed quite a few lines of code to mozdownload and I had a blast doing it!

I recently returned to my home town, Würzburg, with my wife to show it to an Italian couple that we are friends with. What struck me yet again is how "different" I looked at this city that I grew up in.

You really have to ask yourself how much you look at that city of yours. I can't count how often I walked over the old bridge over the river Main without having more than a brief glance at the toes of the statues (which are at roughly head height) while rushing to wherever place I needed to go at the time.

I really started to appreciate more what a nice place I actually grew up in. Since we showed them both the city and also introduced them to the regional culture, we had the chance to enjoy fantastic food and to delve deeper into the historic aspects.

For example, Würzburg was for a long time the seat of the so-called Prince-Bishops (Fürstbischof) who wielded both spiritual and worldly power. As a consequence there are a huge number of churches in the city alone. When I looked at these churches before, I just saw a church plain and simple. Ever since I have been to the cathedral in Cologne, I have been more than disinterested in churches (it's hard to get better than that one in my eyes).

Not this time, though. In passing, my Italian friend commented that he finds it weird, that there are many "worldly" symbols in here. And true enough, the majority of the interior designs depict the bishops and several swords and other insignia, but not many crucifixes or other pictures associated with Christianity. It was very enlightening to see, that worldly power of the Church led to a fusion of symbols of power.

This was just one of several anecdotes of a very enjoyable trip. My conclusion from this trip is to really have a closer look at my surroundings. Especially when I have been in one place for a long time. There may still be something to discover.