beslog

Just discovered by accident: In linux, to display the files packed into a zip file, just run the following command: $ less file.zip

Eben auf 3sat kam ein Beitrag in der Sendung Nano zum Thema Denglisch. Es werden immer mehr englische oder pseudo-englische Worte in der deutschen Sprache verwendet. Sei es im Arbeitsleben oder in der Freizeit. Besonders stark wird das natürlich im Internet deutlich, das von Haus aus schon viel englischlastiger ist, als der Alltag in Deutschland. Ganz extreme Beispiele kann man sich mal auf dieser Website anschauen. :-)

A neat feature in Firefox on Linux is the quick way of finding a website of interest to a specific word or phrase. Just mark a word or phrase in whatever you are reading, open Firefox and middle-/mousewheel-click inside the Firefox window. The website will be opened, that Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” search would find.

I can tell you this: the resistance to go jogging is reciprocally proportional to the temperature outside. But resistance is futile in the face of the almighty training plan. Frozen face, darkness outside (already in the afternoon), iced tracks, wet running shoes. Not really fun. But hey! No pain no gain.

With our roof rebuild we decided to take the chance and switch our satellite TV system (LNB and multiswitch) from analog to the digital DVB-S standard. Now I am looking for the best digital satellite receiver fulfilling my (not overly) specific requirements:

• just one tuner built in
• no harddrive
• ASTRA satellite at 19.2°E
• below 150.00 €
• digital Audio out (coax or RCA) with Dolby Digital support (5.1 or even 6.1, maybe even DTS support) for connexion to a digital AV receiver (the next product I am looking for)

Currently I am looking at 3 products chosen by reading many forum entries and product test sites:

• Humax F2-Fox
• TechniSat DIGIT MF4-S
• Preisner SRD1000

Maybe I will find something suitable this week…

img_0379.jpg Originally uploaded by Besfred.

This is how the dormer looked like on September 13th. There is another one on the other side of the roof. This can be seen in my other flickr.com photos.

One of the cool things about flickr.com is that it exposes your photos. Aaron found one of mine and liked it so that he used it on his web site about lawn maintenance.

For the last three weeks (my vacation) my family and I had a lot to do. The roof of our house got two dormers like in the picture of the corresponding wikipedia entry but with 2 windows, so its twice the width. I took lots of photos and will eventually upload the best ones to my flickr account.

On a completely different note I read about the Last.FM community / service and created an account (see on the right under Blogroll). The only problem is that I cannot feed it with my music favorites because my home server, which hosts my music collection, is not online yet due to the afore mentioned home improvement.

Without investing any money you can improve the mileage of your car.
All you need to do is adjust your driving behaviour a little. Follow the tips below and save real money :-)

• avoid short distance drives (below 4 km / 2.5 miles) The engine reaches its operating temperature and optimal combustion not until around this distance. During those first 4 km the mileage is considerably lower than average and raises after driving for a while. Get a bike or take a walk. This also improves your health.
• start ride sharing / car pool If your coworker lives in your neighborhood, why not share the ride to your employer and take turns in driving. Even if he lives in the next village it is still rewarding. While this does not improve your mileage, it saves you costs for fuel and lowers the deterioration of your car.
• raise the pressure of the car tires Raise the pressure by 0.2 bar / 3 psi over the manufacturer’s recommendation for a fully loaded car and the rolling friction drops and mileage rises by 3 to 5 percent. However do not raise the pressure higher
• switch off unneeded electric drains Air condition and window defroster cost lots of energy. Also do not run the engine idle to bring it to its operating temperature or to defrost your windows. Use an ice scraper instead. The engine reaches operating temperature faster when driving than when running idle
• clear out unnecessary things from your car Driving around dead freight raises the overall car weight and thus lowers the mileage
• lower air resistance If you came back from vacation, dismount the roof and bicycle racks. Also close sunroof and windows.
• drive at lower revolution speed Accelerate quickly, shift to higher gears early and drive at constant speed in a high gear at low rpm. Use the first gear only for the first few meters, then shift to the second. When you reach about 2000 rpm, shift to the third.
• drive anticipatory In a traffic jam, or at a stoplight, if you do not want to slow down yet, decouple. If you need to slow down, couple again, and if you want to slow down even faster, shift to a lower gear and couple. Of course, to fully stop, you need to brake and decouple. Otherwise you will stall the engine. :-)
• Stop the engine, if you need to stand still for 20 sec and more at a stop light or traffic jam.
• When driving downhill, shift to a higher gear and step off the throttle and do not decouple. The engine registers that and will run idle without consuming fuel. This is called throttle cutoff.
• drive consistent Avoid Stop’n'Go style driving and try to stay at average speed

I found a very good webbased time tracker, with the latest en-vogue technology (AJAX, type-ahead).
You can test it anonymously or register for free and get to save your timed tasks.
It is free, webbased (=> data is globally available), snappy (due to AJAX usage), and beautifully designed.

Yesterday the price for one liter of diesel fuel was at an all-I-can-remember-high of 1.169 Euro.
And the crisis in Iran does not help either.
With the basic data of 1 Dollar = 0,8089 Euro, 1 Gallon = 3.7854 Liter, 1 Kilometer = 0.621 Miles and a consumption of 6 Liters per 100 kilometers, that means:

• 5.47 USD per Gallon Diesel fuel
• 39.2 Miles per Gallon
• 13,96 USD per 100 Miles

Compare that to the 3 USD in the US. Around 57 percent of the diesel price in Germany are taxes.
Time to look for alternatives.