from from techfresh
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
EEE mods to the max
Admit it, everyone wants to break open their EEE together with random gadgets (bluetooth, GPS, another wifi, FM transmitter) and solder them together again to a universal gadget monster!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Useless Gadget Review: Samsung SGH-C140 phone
What is it?
The Samsung SGH-C140 is a mobile phone that does just that, being a mobile phone. For calling and stuff.
Why did you buy it?
My previous mobile phone, a similarly priced LG from 2 years ago, managed to grow a large orange spot in the middle of the display. The only other LG phone of this type that I know of had the same problem, so I guess it's a frequent failure. Furthermore I tend to buy only Korean mobile phones, just to keep my ex-colleague working there employed. Furthermore, I had to get one from the same provider as my old one so I could swap the SIM-cards and keep my old number. Here you can see the Samsung on the left, and the crippled LG on the right:
How much does it cost?
This cost 12.95 euro at the "mobilcom" store, including a T-Mobile Sim-card with 5 euro preloaded, so in effect it costs 7.95, which is not much for a working mobile phone. I have no idea about the calling and sms costs for T-Mobile prepaid, but these will certainly be a ripoff.
What was in the box?
In the box I could find a mobile phone, a "standard battery" (that's what was written on it), a charger, a SIM-card, and some paperwork including German and English fold-out manuals that seem to be idiot proof. Even though the phone has a head-set connector plug behind a cap on the side, it didn't came with a head-set so I won't be walking around talking into a head-set, thereby making me look either interesting or schizophrenic, any time soon.
How big is it?
It's cheap-mobile-phone sized. It has the same size as my old one, so I guess it's a standard. You won't impress anyone with its small size, but neither will you get any comments about the phone's functionality as a brick or baseball bat. Here is the comparison:
Is it stylish enough for the modern style-conscious gadget lover?
It's no iPod, but still pretty decently designed for a cheap phone. I hope the paint doesn't come off like with my previous models. They made a shiny round band around the sides, which already has fingerprints all over it and also makes it impossible to put the thing on its side, if you wanted to do that for any reason. It would have been nice if there wouldn't be T-Mobile printed on it in big letters.
What does it have?
It comes with 9 outmost crappy ringtones preloaded. I am actually ashamed to have one of these coming from my phone in public. They could have chosen sounds that are useful for ringtones (suggestion to Samsung: what about a sound that goes "ring! ring!"), instead they used a selection of elevator music sounds.
It supports 9 random european languages: German, English, Magyar (?), Polski, Cestina, Slovensky, Hrvatski, Srpski (yes, really!), and Macedonian. Macedonian uses the half-cyrillic, half greek alphabet, but I wasn't able to create an SMS with this alphabet. The SMS service seems to support unicode.
What doesn't it have?
The only real problem is that it doesn't have a decent ringtone. It also lacks bluetooth, a camera (luckily!), a radio, an mp3 player, internet browsing capabilities and lots of other things you never ever would use your phone for anyway. Well, apart from bluetooth. It doesn't have the text 'colour display' written on top of the display as was the case with my previous mobile phone. It still has a colour display though, so don't worry about that. Oh, and it doesn't have the ability to play ANY games, not even to download them via "Jamba". Excellent. They sort of figured that someone who likes to play games will get a PSP anyway. Or to surf the internet....
How long does it last?
According to the packaging, the battery is good for 400 hours stand by or 420 minutes calling. With my calling frequency this means that in my case I will aim on running it for about 400 hours per battery charge. That is about 16 days, quite impressive! The more expensive models had at least half the battery life, probably due to the many battery-eating functions. As for expected lifetime of the device, my previous samsung SGH-M100 phone from about 8 years ago (mp3-enabled!) still works, be it with crappy battery performance.
What is the cool stuff?
You can change the background picture to a calendar, showing the current month, and highlighting the current day. Since I mostly use my mobile phone to check the time, and check the calender to see when it will be weekend again, this is a very functional feature.
It has the SOS mode. This needs an explanation: If you press the "C" button four times in Idle mode, it will send an SOS message to preset phone numbers (does my provider support this service even if my prepaid account is empty?). After these have been sent, it will only respond to calls from these phone numbers, and after one vibration automatically answer so the owner of the phone can talk to the person calling. After seeing a collection of Korean movies, I totally understand this function. Imagine you are tied up in a basement by some person who saw you kissing your sister during elementary school, and your Samsung SGH-C140 lies on the floor. It obviously is in "Idle" mode as it hasn't been used for 0.032 seconds. With the one toe that hasn't been cut-off yet you manage to press the "C" button 4 times, and you are automatically connected to your friend, who happens to be the #1 Korean martial arts expert who is also nerdy enough to have access to a mobile-phone tracking device, and kill all your enemies with one move of a katana, after which this friend will live happily ever after with your sister who grew up to be a photo model/famous actress. (This is the Hollywood cut, the Korean cut would have a more distressing end of course). There is also an option "Locate mobile phone". If it does what it says it does, it seems to me pretty useless. If you manage to get in to that menu option, you obviously already have the mobile phone in your hands, so no need to locate it. Maybe people with more experience in Korean movies can give insight into this.
Any irritations already?
The buttons are vague, one big rubber pad. Some genius decided to put a tiny "ok" button in the middle of the navigation button, so you end up pressing "ok" half-way during your navigation, entering sub-menus you didn't want to enter. This will be of no problem if you are a Korean girl and have the kind of thumbs that come with being a Korean girl. Luckily, in most cases the navigation button can be avoided by pressing the corresponding numbers in the menu. The keypad lock doesn't seem to be configurable. At the moment it locks after not using it for 0.032 seconds (I counted them). [update: I just found the option to adjust this! Actually it is very configurable.]
Overall opinion?
It isn't all that bad. This mobile phone has the surprising feature of being able to call people with it or using it to receive calls, which really sets it out against its more expensive competitors that are specialized in doing useless stuff.
Why is this review useless?
I bought the last one in the store! Well, you can still get them elsewhere, I suppose.
The Samsung SGH-C140 is a mobile phone that does just that, being a mobile phone. For calling and stuff.
Why did you buy it?
My previous mobile phone, a similarly priced LG from 2 years ago, managed to grow a large orange spot in the middle of the display. The only other LG phone of this type that I know of had the same problem, so I guess it's a frequent failure. Furthermore I tend to buy only Korean mobile phones, just to keep my ex-colleague working there employed. Furthermore, I had to get one from the same provider as my old one so I could swap the SIM-cards and keep my old number. Here you can see the Samsung on the left, and the crippled LG on the right:
How much does it cost?
This cost 12.95 euro at the "mobilcom" store, including a T-Mobile Sim-card with 5 euro preloaded, so in effect it costs 7.95, which is not much for a working mobile phone. I have no idea about the calling and sms costs for T-Mobile prepaid, but these will certainly be a ripoff.
What was in the box?
In the box I could find a mobile phone, a "standard battery" (that's what was written on it), a charger, a SIM-card, and some paperwork including German and English fold-out manuals that seem to be idiot proof. Even though the phone has a head-set connector plug behind a cap on the side, it didn't came with a head-set so I won't be walking around talking into a head-set, thereby making me look either interesting or schizophrenic, any time soon.
How big is it?
It's cheap-mobile-phone sized. It has the same size as my old one, so I guess it's a standard. You won't impress anyone with its small size, but neither will you get any comments about the phone's functionality as a brick or baseball bat. Here is the comparison:
Is it stylish enough for the modern style-conscious gadget lover?
It's no iPod, but still pretty decently designed for a cheap phone. I hope the paint doesn't come off like with my previous models. They made a shiny round band around the sides, which already has fingerprints all over it and also makes it impossible to put the thing on its side, if you wanted to do that for any reason. It would have been nice if there wouldn't be T-Mobile printed on it in big letters.
What does it have?
It comes with 9 outmost crappy ringtones preloaded. I am actually ashamed to have one of these coming from my phone in public. They could have chosen sounds that are useful for ringtones (suggestion to Samsung: what about a sound that goes "ring! ring!"), instead they used a selection of elevator music sounds.
It supports 9 random european languages: German, English, Magyar (?), Polski, Cestina, Slovensky, Hrvatski, Srpski (yes, really!), and Macedonian. Macedonian uses the half-cyrillic, half greek alphabet, but I wasn't able to create an SMS with this alphabet. The SMS service seems to support unicode.
What doesn't it have?
The only real problem is that it doesn't have a decent ringtone. It also lacks bluetooth, a camera (luckily!), a radio, an mp3 player, internet browsing capabilities and lots of other things you never ever would use your phone for anyway. Well, apart from bluetooth. It doesn't have the text 'colour display' written on top of the display as was the case with my previous mobile phone. It still has a colour display though, so don't worry about that. Oh, and it doesn't have the ability to play ANY games, not even to download them via "Jamba". Excellent. They sort of figured that someone who likes to play games will get a PSP anyway. Or to surf the internet....
How long does it last?
According to the packaging, the battery is good for 400 hours stand by or 420 minutes calling. With my calling frequency this means that in my case I will aim on running it for about 400 hours per battery charge. That is about 16 days, quite impressive! The more expensive models had at least half the battery life, probably due to the many battery-eating functions. As for expected lifetime of the device, my previous samsung SGH-M100 phone from about 8 years ago (mp3-enabled!) still works, be it with crappy battery performance.
What is the cool stuff?
You can change the background picture to a calendar, showing the current month, and highlighting the current day. Since I mostly use my mobile phone to check the time, and check the calender to see when it will be weekend again, this is a very functional feature.
It has the SOS mode. This needs an explanation: If you press the "C" button four times in Idle mode, it will send an SOS message to preset phone numbers (does my provider support this service even if my prepaid account is empty?). After these have been sent, it will only respond to calls from these phone numbers, and after one vibration automatically answer so the owner of the phone can talk to the person calling. After seeing a collection of Korean movies, I totally understand this function. Imagine you are tied up in a basement by some person who saw you kissing your sister during elementary school, and your Samsung SGH-C140 lies on the floor. It obviously is in "Idle" mode as it hasn't been used for 0.032 seconds. With the one toe that hasn't been cut-off yet you manage to press the "C" button 4 times, and you are automatically connected to your friend, who happens to be the #1 Korean martial arts expert who is also nerdy enough to have access to a mobile-phone tracking device, and kill all your enemies with one move of a katana, after which this friend will live happily ever after with your sister who grew up to be a photo model/famous actress. (This is the Hollywood cut, the Korean cut would have a more distressing end of course). There is also an option "Locate mobile phone". If it does what it says it does, it seems to me pretty useless. If you manage to get in to that menu option, you obviously already have the mobile phone in your hands, so no need to locate it. Maybe people with more experience in Korean movies can give insight into this.
Any irritations already?
The buttons are vague, one big rubber pad. Some genius decided to put a tiny "ok" button in the middle of the navigation button, so you end up pressing "ok" half-way during your navigation, entering sub-menus you didn't want to enter. This will be of no problem if you are a Korean girl and have the kind of thumbs that come with being a Korean girl. Luckily, in most cases the navigation button can be avoided by pressing the corresponding numbers in the menu. The keypad lock doesn't seem to be configurable. At the moment it locks after not using it for 0.032 seconds (I counted them). [update: I just found the option to adjust this! Actually it is very configurable.]
Overall opinion?
It isn't all that bad. This mobile phone has the surprising feature of being able to call people with it or using it to receive calls, which really sets it out against its more expensive competitors that are specialized in doing useless stuff.
Why is this review useless?
I bought the last one in the store! Well, you can still get them elsewhere, I suppose.
Friday, December 21, 2007
It's easy to post using a PSP...
...and fast: only 10 minutes for this brilliant artwork you're reading.
I wonder how long it takes Pimbert to post using an Eee. Another two months, most likely.
Note: Due to technical difficulties (the internet connection died during the tedious typing of the above lines probably due to the high-level thinking they induced or to the restricted attention span of the router), this post actually had to be rewritten with the help of a huge, old-fashioned, keyboard-equipped laptop. Using "mobile devices" to perform basic tasks is somehow reminiscent of editing books in the middle ages. I'm about to hire an army of monks to allow me to handle the PSP during production of the coming posts.
I wonder how long it takes Pimbert to post using an Eee. Another two months, most likely.
Note: Due to technical difficulties (the internet connection died during the tedious typing of the above lines probably due to the high-level thinking they induced or to the restricted attention span of the router), this post actually had to be rewritten with the help of a huge, old-fashioned, keyboard-equipped laptop. Using "mobile devices" to perform basic tasks is somehow reminiscent of editing books in the middle ages. I'm about to hire an army of monks to allow me to handle the PSP during production of the coming posts.
Indecent Proposal
If I would have wanted a "vollwertiges Marken Notebook" from Acer with Linux installed on it, wouldn't I have ordered it already? Don't they want me to have an EEE? Bastards...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Gadget of the year
Click the image for the complete review:
I think I will get this gadget, but maybe I should first wait until the EEE arrives. Don't want to overdo it, of course.
Edit: More reviews and comments therein have been added lately!
I think I will get this gadget, but maybe I should first wait until the EEE arrives. Don't want to overdo it, of course.
Edit: More reviews and comments therein have been added lately!
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
That's how we should do research
I mean, play video games... Well sometimes the difference is hard to tell, i guess. (And i hope that everybody's grateful that i didn't even think of linking to any sort of topless wii video.)
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
EEE wins again
News from the crazy french guy at blogeee, well known for connecting his EEE pc with everything that comes his way and is equipped with a USB cable:
The whole OS of the EEE can be reinstalled in 5 minutes!
The whole OS of the EEE can be reinstalled in 5 minutes!
Gadgets that make you look better
CNET has an article on gadgets that make you look better. If any of these gadgets work is highly dubious, depending on how exactly they are supposed to be used of course. The way the depicted gadget should be used is left as an exercise to the reader.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Antisocial networks
If it goes on like this, i'll never manage to convince myself to get a facebook account... Not that i have any so-called friend of the facebook kind that i could "meet" there, actually. Maybe it's time to create a social network for people who refuse to use facebook.
A social network with "enemies", maybe?
A social network with "enemies", maybe?
Friday, November 23, 2007
It finally happened...
...i've found someone more cynical that could ever possibly be(?). I don't know if what disturbs me the most here is that he's doing every possible trick to get people to watch some stupid videos that are supposed to make them buy some shit, or that it openly details actions whose morality is probably questionable, or that it would certainly be more efficient to simply pay his employees to click 100000 times on the stupid links themselves (that's what they probably do, in the end; why didn't he go so far as confessing this?). And he looks happy on the picture.
I'll never ever watch another video after Pimbert sends me a link. I'd have too much the impression to be utilized in a gigantic marketing plot. Ok, i think the ones involving cars of the 70s and/or junk food are most likely still safe enough...
I'll never ever watch another video after Pimbert sends me a link. I'd have too much the impression to be utilized in a gigantic marketing plot. Ok, i think the ones involving cars of the 70s and/or junk food are most likely still safe enough...
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Broken gadgets
Found in the wired blog: The Not in My Cart website with a list of all recent recalls.
My favorite, a recall on a model rocket (emphasis mine):
My favorite, a recall on a model rocket (emphasis mine):
The model rocket's side or engine retainer ring can separate and cause the rocket to fall without the nose cone separating and the parachute deploying, posing a risk of an impact injury to nearby consumers.What if the people standing nearby weren't consumers, but people following the autarkia philosophy? Won't they get hurt? Or doesn't the model rocket firm care about them getting hurt. What about young kids and babies? Are they already consumers?
Tweaking the EEE pc
Not available out here yet, but as soon as it comes notebookreview.com has some hints tweaking it.
Also read the excellent info on the eeeuser.com wiki!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Try getting THIS with python or .net!
How many programming languages are there where you can end up having an asteroid named after you?
But a well deserved one it is: the Glazebrook meteorite is named after one of the developers of the excellent PDL perl data language, the perl way to do Matlab, which just helped me solving a set of linear equations without trouble.
But a well deserved one it is: the Glazebrook meteorite is named after one of the developers of the excellent PDL perl data language, the perl way to do Matlab, which just helped me solving a set of linear equations without trouble.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The theory to encabulators (all new, for adults only)...
...among other things: Encabulators are obviously built on the basic principles of orgone accumulators, i.e. machines used to harvest orgonotic energy directly from ether or a nearby reseller, and putting it to use to regenerate the contra-rotohydroflux of decadrapondic protracto-billevesium, thus activating the Broad Utensilic Lateral and Lysergic Space of Hilbertian Iterative Thermodrome. It goes without saying that this implies loads of fadeasic baliverns, which is potentially dangerous to faribola-sensitive persons.
But of course, it does get you all the naughty stewardesses that you may ever dream of.
Coming soon on Pffflog: How-to build your own orgonotic comb.
As visionary and radically life-changing as these devices may be, they are still currently facing lots of criticism due to the lack of faith of most yellow-belly so-called scientists, mostly out of concerns that believing in such advanced theories usually lead the superiorly intelligent person in question to look strikingly like this:
But of course, it does get you all the naughty stewardesses that you may ever dream of.
Coming soon on Pffflog: How-to build your own orgonotic comb.
More on encabulators
Frequent readers of this blog might have already read about encabulators, but only few will understand its working mechanism. Most work on encabulators has been in the second half of the 20th century, and good information is hard to find. Fortunately, several original instruction videos have been posted on youtube:
All new, for adults
If someone would ever make a parody of 70's style movies for grown-ups, it would look like this. Nevertheless, it's the real thing. The quotes are excellent!
(note: I was actually looking at opel kadett advertisements, can you imagine...)
Thursday, November 8, 2007
New, lightweight software
It's free, it's light, it installs on all OS-es, and it doesn't really do anything. You want that.
NaDa website
Whatever floats your boat.
Click the picture for a collection of tattoos placed on all gradations of hairy skin.
Warning: NSFAHCOLAYKI (not safe for a healthy continuation of life as you know it)
Warning: NSFAHCOLAYKI (not safe for a healthy continuation of life as you know it)
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
How online shopping should look like
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Before youtube...
Before youtube.
There was television.
And before television, there were silent movies.
But in the end, there can be only one higher goal!
Presenting: What Happened On 23rd Street, New York City
LOLZ WTF!
(read the accompanying text for the video for your intellectual enjoyment)
Friday, October 26, 2007
Eye candy
Who needs leopard's shiny features when one can enjoy endless fun with installing non-working linux-style eye candy and waste equal amounts of cpu time/terrestrial resources (that is, on top of what you already waste for the sake of running a free os with still slightly approximate power management)??...
But honestly, as good as the blue-screen-of-death icon for windows machines might be in leopard, is it worth any of the rotating cube goodness in compiz and the like? Naaaaaa........
Leopard OS released, but will tombert install it?
Apple's newest OS is here at last! Introducing about 300 new features, 297 of which are stupid eye-candy you didn't need but will slow your computer down enough to make you want a new one. Examples: transparency at random places, and your grand-mothers favorite: horrid colorful HTML e-mail templates that will make your inbox look like Myspace:
Daisies! How cute is that!
The other three are:
Daisies! How cute is that!
The other three are:
- Virtual desktops, which already existed since the Amiga, if not earlier. Look, this was probably in NextSTEP anyway, why was it removed in the first place!
- A decent backup system. I have to admit, this has potential.
- A built-in profanity dictionary. Will it include phrases like "Hey, this was in XP/DOS/HP-UX/C64/UNICS ... already", or "the Woz is a better guy than Jobs"?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Roast Cat as You Wish to Eat It.
123. Roast Cat as You Wish to Eat It. You will take a cat that is fat, and decapitate it. And after it is dead, cut off the head and throw it away because it is not for eating, for they say that eating the brains will cause him who eats them to lose his senses and judgment. Then flay it very cleanly, and open it and clean it well, and then wrap it in a cloth of clean linen. And bury it beneath the ground where it must be for a day and a night; and then take it out of there and set it to roast on a spit. And roast it over the fire. And when beginning to roast it, grease it with good garlic and oil. And when you finish greasing it, whip it well with a green twig , and this must be done before it is well-roasted, greasing it and whipping it. And when it is roasted, cut it as if it were a rabbit or a kid and put it on a big plate; and take garlic and oil blended with good broth in such a manner that it is well-thinned. And cast it over the cat. And you may eat of it because it is very good food.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Linux genuine advantage
Is your installation of linux working fine? Does it not try to send your personal data to some unknown server? Are you not stuck after every change to your system because you need to register your version of linux? Then you probably want to switch to:
Linux genuine advantage
Really, you know it's for the better.
Linux genuine advantage
Really, you know it's for the better.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Advertising 101: lesson 2.
In this part of the course you are required to test your skills in product profiling by writing a short essay on the advertisement for the renault traffic.
In your essay, describe the intended audience for the product (e.g. furniture logistics for church personnel, the ubiquitous transport of bikini-clad ladies), and how the advertisement manages to bring out the positive properties of the product for these groups. As a side question, discuss what the makers wanted to convey about the product with the scene at 0:20.
Bonus points are given for anyone who can find even a remote reason why this advertisement could have actually helped selling the product.
In your essay, describe the intended audience for the product (e.g. furniture logistics for church personnel, the ubiquitous transport of bikini-clad ladies), and how the advertisement manages to bring out the positive properties of the product for these groups. As a side question, discuss what the makers wanted to convey about the product with the scene at 0:20.
Bonus points are given for anyone who can find even a remote reason why this advertisement could have actually helped selling the product.
howto: connect to google talk outside from the web browser
One good thing of google talk is that it's mainly just the jabber protocol, so using it outside from the web browser using your favorite IM client is easy as anything:
For example, one can use the amazing terminal-only Bitlbee. For me this didn't work immediately, but after trying several permutations of login names (gmail/googlemail) and port numbers I got logged in fine.
I bet Tombert knows the way of using some fancy graphical client to log in. Modern rubbish, pffft.
For example, one can use the amazing terminal-only Bitlbee. For me this didn't work immediately, but after trying several permutations of login names (gmail/googlemail) and port numbers I got logged in fine.
I bet Tombert knows the way of using some fancy graphical client to log in. Modern rubbish, pffft.
How to install unstable/non-free packages on debian via apt-get
Just don't.
Did you hear me?
I said, leave it!
Did you hear me?
I said, leave it!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The world wide worst food show
Food to skip:
Flickr picture found in the comments of a boingboing article.
Unfortunately, no pictures of the actual food articles were shown, neither do we know the ingredients of the SUDDEN DEATH sauce.
Flickr picture found in the comments of a boingboing article.
Unfortunately, no pictures of the actual food articles were shown, neither do we know the ingredients of the SUDDEN DEATH sauce.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
howto: travel maps
Who needs things like GPS-synchronized cameras and geo-tagging of photos in google maps when one can use such modern tools like gnuplot? So here's a way to create maps with points corresponding to places you've been to for holidays or whatever. Let's say you start with a file called 'travel_list' that looks like this:
#date place latitude longitude
06/04 Berlin 52.31.00 N 13.25.00 E
07/04 Strasbourg 48.35.04 N 07.44.55 E
08/05 Muenchen 48.08.00 N 11.34.00 E
07/05 Tokyo 35.41.00 N 139.46.00 E
10/05 Freiburg 48.00.00 N 07.51.00 E
11/06 Dublin 53.20.33 N 06.15.57 W
12/06 Sao_Paulo 23.30.00 S 46.37.00 W
02/06 Grenoble 45.11.24 N 05.43.12 E
03/06 Montreal 45.30.29 N 73.33.18 W
06/07 Vancouver 49.16.00 N 123.08.00 W
07/07 Vina_del_Mar 33.03.00 S 71.32.30 W
08/07 Sydney 33.52.06 S 151.12.31 E
i.e. date (not too relevant here...), place, latitude and longitude in the stupid degree-minute-second-direction format. First, you need to convert that to something useful, using for example the beautiful filter script:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Math::Trig;
print "#date\tlat.\tlong.\tplace\ttime\tdist\n";
$first = 1;
$fact = 3.14159/180;
$R = 6371;
$latitude_ref = sprintf("%10.4f", 50);
$longitude_ref = sprintf("%10.4f", 8.2711);
$place_ref = "Mainz";
$month_prev = -1;
$day = 2;
while (<>) {
if (m/^#/) {
print;
next;
}
@tab = split, /\s+/;
$date=$tab[0];
$place=$tab[1];
$latitude=$tab[2]." ".$tab[3];
$longitude=$tab[4]." ".$tab[5];
$date =~ s#([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})#$2/01/$1#;
$month=$2;
$year=$1;
if ($month == $month_prev) {
$day += 7;
} else {
$day = 2;
}
$latitude =~ s#([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+).([0-9]+)\s+([A-Z])#$dec=sprintf("%5.4f", $2/60+$3/3600); $s=1; if ("$4" eq "S" || "$4" eq "s") {$s=-1;} $l = ($1 + $dec) * $s; $l="$l";#e;
$latitude = sprintf("%10.4f", $latitude);
$longitude =~ s#([0-9]+)\.([0-9]+).([0-9]+)\s+([A-Z])#$dec=sprintf("%5.4f", $2/60+$3/3600); $s=1; if ("$4" eq "W" || "$4" eq "w") {$s=-1;} $l = ($1 + $dec) * $s; $l="$l";#e;
$longitude = sprintf("%10.4f", $longitude);
$time = $year*365 + ($month-1)*30 + $day;
if ($first == 1) {
$day_ref = $day - 1;
$date_ref = sprintf("%02d/%02d/%02d", $month,$day_ref,$year);
$time_ref = $year*365 + ($month-1)*30 + $day_ref;
print "$date_ref\t$latitude_ref\t$longitude_ref\t$place_ref\t$time_ref\t0\n";
$first = 0;
}
$cos_alpha = cos($fact*(90. - $latitude))*cos($fact*(90. - $latitude_ref)) + sin($fact*(90. - $latitude))*sin($fact*(90. - $latitude_ref))*cos($fact*($longitude_ref - $longitude));
$dist = $R*acos($cos_alpha);
print "$date\t$latitude\t$longitude\t$place\t$time\t$dist\n";
$day_nxt = $day + 1;
$date_nxt = sprintf("%02d/%02d/%02d", $month,$day_nxt,$year);
$time_nxt = $year*365 + ($month-1)*30 + $day_nxt;
print "$date_nxt\t$latitude_ref\t$longitude_ref\t$place_ref\t$time_nxt\t0\n";
}
(The script basically reformats the latitude and longitude to the more usable signed decimal format, but also does a couple of other not-too-important things, like adding a reference point before/after each travel (Mainz here, nobody's perfect...), and modify the date format. It also calculates an estimate of the distance (in km) between the destination and the reference point.)
Then the command
./filter travel_list > travel_list_fmt
yields the following, reformatted data:
#date lat long place time dist
04/01/06 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 2281 0
04/01/06 52.5167 13.4167 Berlin 2282 454.262703608682
04/03/06 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 2283 0
04/01/07 48.5844 7.7486 Strasbourg 2647 161.902911382215
04/03/07 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 2648 0
05/01/08 48.1333 11.5667 Muenchen 3042 317.323904751761
05/03/08 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 3043 0
05/01/07 35.6833 139.7667 Tokyo 2677 9363.54420110419
05/03/07 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 2678 0
05/01/10 48.0000 7.8500 Freiburg 3772 224.50025608341
05/03/10 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 3773 0
06/01/11 53.3425 -6.2658 Dublin 4167 1066.81746017645
06/03/11 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 4168 0
06/01/12 -23.5000 -46.6167 Sao_Paulo 4532 9793.4646868345
06/03/12 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 4533 0
06/01/02 45.1900 5.7200 Grenoble 882 567.938242585956
06/03/02 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 883 0
06/01/03 45.5081 -73.5550 Montreal 1247 5823.71530042123
06/03/03 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 1248 0
07/01/06 49.2667 -123.1333 Vancouver 2372 8045.84376783844
07/03/06 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 2373 0
07/01/07 -33.0500 -71.5417 Vina_del_Mar 2737 12099.4845691498
07/03/07 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 2738 0
07/01/08 -33.8683 151.2086 Sydney 3102 16514.4120114015
07/03/08 50.0000 8.2711 Mainz 3103 0
Then the only thing to do is to put good old gnuplot to use, with a complicated script like travel_map.gnu
#!/usr/bin/gnuplot -persist
set title "Travel map"
unset key
unset border
unset xtics
unset ytics
pl 'w2.dat' t '' w l lt 3
repl 'travel_list_fmt' u 3:2 t '' w lp lt 1 pt 5
set output 'travel_map.eps'
set terminal postscript eps enhanced color solid 20
repl
set terminal X11
Here's the resulting picture (./travel_map.gnu):
A variant: Same thing on a sphere (travel_map_sphere.gnu, picture at the top).
#!/usr/bin/gnuplot -persist
set angles degrees
set title "Travel map"
set ticslevel 0
set view 50,95,1.2,1.2
set mapping spherical
set parametric
set samples 32
set isosamples 9
set urange [-90:90]
set vrange [0:360]
set noxtics
set noytics
set noztics
set border 0
unset key
spl cos(u)*cos(v),cos(u)*sin(v),sin(u) with lines lt 0
repl 'w2.dat' w l lt 3
repl 'travel_list_fmt' u 3:2 w p lt 1 pt 7
pause -1
set output 'travel_map_globe.eps'
set terminal postscript eps
enhanced color solid 20
repl
set terminal X11
Beautiful, huh?
(Inspiration: gnuplot demo)
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
howto: not use the non-working non-free/unstable repository and indeed succeed installing java on debian
Do as suggested here.
If junk is left from previous tries, some non-existing link to an old java compiler might still be present.
Therefore do:
If junk is left from previous tries, some non-existing link to an old java compiler might still be present.
Therefore do:
ln -fs /usr/lib/j2sdk1.5-sun/bin/java /etc/alternatives/java
howto: miserably fail installing sun java on debian
In unstable/non-free there are debian repositories for java.
This makes life very easy, in theory:
The inconvenient practice....
First!!! make a checkpoint or image of the current state, going on with installing might mess up everything!!
in /etc/apt/sources.list there should be a link to the unstable non-free resources:
Then one needs to increase the apt cache to some ridiculous number, I did:
in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf
Of course, an apt-get update is needed. also, in earlier tries I had problems with libcupsys2 and libcupsys2-gnutls10. Remove them both, this will strangely enough update almost all of your system, including glibc and the whole disaster that comes with doing that, sshd restart, you name it (!?! I don't even have a printer attached to that machine, it's in a datacenter !?!). Removing using dpkg might be the way to go.
So far, so good. Let's try installing java...
One will get to see a license agreement, this should be scrolled through completely, and then one can continue UNTIL one ends in an infinite loop:
(there will be a screenshot here as soon blogger image upload starts working again)
Fix: spend a full day trying to get this working, fail, hate debian.
This makes life very easy, in theory:
# apt-get install sun-java5-jdk sun-java5-plugin sun-java5-fonts
or
# apt-get install sun-java5-jre sun-java5-plugin sun-java5-fonts
The inconvenient practice....
First!!! make a checkpoint or image of the current state, going on with installing might mess up everything!!
in /etc/apt/sources.list there should be a link to the unstable non-free resources:
# Unstable Sid
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
# Unstable Sources
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free
Then one needs to increase the apt cache to some ridiculous number, I did:
APT::Cache-Limit "212582912";
in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf
Of course, an apt-get update is needed. also, in earlier tries I had problems with libcupsys2 and libcupsys2-gnutls10. Remove them both, this will strangely enough update almost all of your system, including glibc and the whole disaster that comes with doing that, sshd restart, you name it (!?! I don't even have a printer attached to that machine, it's in a datacenter !?!). Removing using dpkg might be the way to go.
So far, so good. Let's try installing java...
apt-get install sun-java5-jre
One will get to see a license agreement, this should be scrolled through completely, and then one can continue UNTIL one ends in an infinite loop:
(there will be a screenshot here as soon blogger image upload starts working again)
root# apt-get -f -m install sun-java5-jre
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
sun-java5-jre is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 420 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up sun-java5-bin (1.5.0-13-1) ...
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
dpkg: error processing sun-java5-bin (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of sun-java5-jre:
sun-java5-jre depends on sun-java5-bin (= 1.5.0-13-1) | ia32-sun-java5-bin (= 1.5.0-13-1); however:
Package sun-java5-bin is not configured yet.
Package ia32-sun-java5-bin is not installed.
dpkg: error processing sun-java5-jre (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
sun-java5-bin
sun-java5-jre
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
root# apt-get -f -m install ia32-sun-java5-bin
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package ia32-sun-java5-bin is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
sun-java5-jre
E: Package ia32-sun-java5-bin has no installation candidate
root# apt-get -f -m install sun-java5-bin
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
sun-java5-bin is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 420 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up sun-java5-bin (1.5.0-13-1) ...
Could not create the Java virtual machine.
dpkg: error processing sun-java5-bin (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of sun-java5-jre:
sun-java5-jre depends on sun-java5-bin (= 1.5.0-13-1) | ia32-sun-java5-bin (= 1.5.0-13-1); however:
Package sun-java5-bin is not configured yet.
Package ia32-sun-java5-bin is not installed.
dpkg: error processing sun-java5-jre (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
sun-java5-bin
sun-java5-jre
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Fix: spend a full day trying to get this working, fail, hate debian.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Quotes from Zafón
Interesting quotes i've found in The shadow of the wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (badly translated to english from my french copy, itself translated from spanish even though the writer appears to be catalan...):- "We sometimes believe that people are like lottery tickets: That they are here to turn into reality our absurd illusions."
"Nous croyons parfois que les gens sont des billets de loterie : qu'ils sont là pour transformer en réalité nos absurdes illusions."
I find this one particularly true at times (maybe because i just failed getting a job i was expecting for 2 years)...
- "It's not difficult to earn money. But it's difficult to earn it doing something worthwhile."
"La difficulté n'est pas de gagner de l'argent [...]. La difficulté est de le gagner en faisant quelque chose qui en vaille la peine."
Actually, at times i think i wouldn't even mind making money for anything...
Monday, October 8, 2007
Max "Power" Planck
Wow, Max, as impressed as i was with all that black-body stuff of yours, i'd never thought you'd make it: But still you've just been declared the 7th manliest man ever! Congrats! Well, errr, we'll have to admit that this is due mostly, ok exclusively to your name... That's still quite impressive, now isn't it?
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Mainboard with linux built in: now what?
Asus recently announced their new mainboard with built-in linux,
enthusiasting thousands of nerds, and at the same time leaving
them wondering what actually to do with it.
enthusiasting thousands of nerds, and at the same time leaving
them wondering what actually to do with it.
Jesust toast
What is up with jesus and maria appearing on breakfast items these days?
MrBreakfast reports, and introduces the practical jesus pan.
Alternatives: Open source Richard Stallman toast,
ready to-go pirate toast, monochrome pixelated toast portraits,
and laser-etched toast for the ones who are into stuff like that.
MrBreakfast reports, and introduces the practical jesus pan.
Alternatives: Open source Richard Stallman toast,
ready to-go pirate toast, monochrome pixelated toast portraits,
and laser-etched toast for the ones who are into stuff like that.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Definitive guide to pass exams
How to pass exams (or job interviews?), ukrainian style.
Introducing the practical new idea of dating the teachers' kids.
Includes helpful pictures!
Flog
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Flog may refer to:
- General terms:
- Flagellation (also known as "flogging")
- British or Australian slang meaning either "sell" or "steal"
- An Australian slang term for a person who is an idiot or a "tool"
- To have a flog, or masturbate
- Internet terms:
- A codename for the Spanish-language open source Flash blog
- A blog on Freenet
- A photolog (see the flog)
- A fake blog typically used as a sales tool
- A flipped blog developed for subsequent sale
- A family blog (also see Our Family Blog)
- A blog devoted to food, especially a food porn blog
- A LifeLog (also see Flogging Gordon Bell's Memory)
- The Pravda Photo Blog
- An acronym for "For the Love of God"
- A forced blog, such as those used by students to meet an academic requirement
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