nie, vielleicht, ja, doch!

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So I perhaps spent a bit too much money on stuff I don't really need today. However, given the spate of recent depression, I claim that I deserve it. I went to JBs and bought a copy of Kraftwerk's Electric Café, after my father found the 33 yesterday and was playing it before I took him to the airport. In a spate of purchase of German techno/electronica/et al. Stephanie also bought me the Run Lola Run sound track the other day.
      

I also purchased a cable for my iPod at AUD$35 (did I ever mention Apple Computers is an anagram for the word extortion?). Since Linux decided to write block level shit to my filesystem via Firewire and the iPod won't charge over USB2, this going flat and eating my filesystem, I have solved the problem with a Cable of Union. It's now plugged into a Firewire plugpack and the USB2 on my computer. The new dosfstools in Ubuntu could fsck my broken filesystem back into life (automatically too), and now the iPod seems to be running nicely again.

I have been to the airport 3 times this weekend, and still haven't managed to get out of here. I dropped my youngest brother off at the International Airport, where security was tight, and all the students going on tour were searched for explosives. I dropped my father off at the Virgin (domestic) terminal, but it was late, so I didn't go in. Finally, I picked up my other brother from the Qantas (also domestic) terminal. Security screening here was taking so long the queue was nearly out the door, I was asked to remove my belt and my watch, besides all the usual things. Seems like an unprecedented level of paranoia and it makes me wonder who knows what. Alex seemed relatively happy with all of this, I think he wants to live in a paranoid, police-state.

Did breakfast, wank factor: high. My brother was in attendance, as I'd just had to pick him up. Picking him up, and arriving on time would have gone like clockwork, had his flight not been 20 minutes late. Speaking of clockwork, it's amazing how well oiled the Qantas ground teams are when they were meant to have a plane in the air again in 10 minutes. They had the cargo doors open, and cargo coming out before they had even finished connecting the air bridge. There were people getting off the plane by the time I walked from watching the plane dock to stand by the gate doors. Why can't they do it that fast every day?

Hoary was released. There were drinks to celebrate. I actually concede it really is quite good and that anyone who got my Friday-avo rant should ignore it. I do hope the controversial Nautilus patch gets reverted, but I hear that it has something to do with Stephanie being in Melbourne (if you don't get this, you had to have been there. For the record, Stephanie is not in Melbourne).

We have a TV on the floor in the living room. It's not a new TV, it instead currently belongs to my parents, but my father was speaking of purchasing a new TV soon. They have no need for 3 TVs, plus this one is still a nice television. I didn't buy a DVD player today, because I saw nothing I liked for the price point. Plus, I might be able to do something interesting with generic PC hardware. Perhaps a small computer, or a laptop with a dead LCD. Stephanie saw a Mac Mini in Digilife, she thinks we should use that (incidentally, if you buy your Mac today, you will not get a free Tiger upgrade, so I'm still holding off). A PC would also allow me to wire it into the stereo hardware, assuming I either fix it or replace it.

I think that's enough for now. Canberra next week, should prepare for it at some point. Also, I seem to recall I have a test tomorrow... hmm.
Posted 10/4/05 18:20 — 13 comments

Comments

From:(Anonymous)
Date:2005-04-10 11:36 (UTC)

Oh my

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Well I just did some digging to see what this Nautilus change is all about (I'm a Gentoo user). And wow, I'm glad I'm still a Gentoo user. As far as I can see it, you either have spatial Nautilus (i.e. windows stay open, one window per folder, settings/position remembered), or you have navigational Nautilus (which we're all familiar with). This is some sort of dodgy ick yuck.

Hopefully reason will prevail, and no people will get burned alive while it's resolved.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:2005-04-10 11:45 (UTC)

vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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Just a little typo in the headline ;)

mfg Christian
From:[info]dannipenguin
Date:2005-04-10 13:14 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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I learnt this word speaking, so I appear to have been spelling it wrong for a while now.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:2005-04-10 16:02 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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I find it quite interesting that you learn german. I read planet gnome from time to time and found some of your postings about homework for your german course. Do you study it just for fun? Because I could imagine that it is a very difficult language to learn, when even some natives have problems speaking it correctly (rest in peace Genitiv).
From:[info]dannipenguin
Date:2005-04-10 16:43 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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I'm doing it partially for fun, partially to keep cobwebs out of those parts of my brain, and partially so that I can communicate with the German parts of my family. I had also intended, at some point in my life, to hang out in some crazy German research institute. Of course, that was before I met a girl, etc.

I don't think that German isn't the hardest language out there. There are a fairly rigid set of rules to follow, combined with having to rote learn all those irregular verbs and genders. It could be much worse, at least you don't have tones, and write in a Latin character set.

I find the language interesting, because it's incredibly similar to English (especially old English). However English evolved one way, and German another. The way some things are constructed in German is very interesting.

I've found the biggest problem is decomplexifing my language. English has too many words, and I really like to use them. It's always a problem of building that huge symbol cross reference table. Basically my vocabulary sucks more then my grammar. Ideally a year of total immersion would solve that, but that sounds like a pipe dream for the moment.
From:[info]dannipenguin
Date:2005-04-10 16:45 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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I don't think that German isn't the hardest language out there.
The double negative is confusing and wrong. I meant to say I don't think that German is the hardest language out there.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:2005-04-10 16:57 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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I also noticed that some parts are quite similar. I'm currently reading Shakespear's Midsummer Night's Dream and when you read it out loud it sounds very German ("Thou hast" instead of "you have" etc.)

Well we should flip locations, I'm in need of something new and exotic and I want to leave the (currently) rainy could Europe :)
From:[info]dannipenguin
Date:2005-04-10 17:11 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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The problem with English was that they "Frenched" it up at some point, added silent letters, an 'ou' sound and decided that phonics that split across a character (zB. a-e, mane).

I've found out I qualify for an English passport, which I intend to apply for as soon as my father finds the paper work I need. That would make living and working in the EU significantly less painful.
From:(Anonymous)
Date:2005-04-10 17:24 (UTC)

Re: vielleicht, nicht verleicht

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I like that talk although communication via blog comments is a little bit painful. If you'd like to talk to me further just drop me a mail with IM numbers or so to cw at centerwave dot de. I'd like to have a interesting conversation about languages with somebody from Australia
From:(Anonymous)
Date:2005-04-10 14:34 (UTC)

That's amazing.

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I was listening to electric cafe just as I read this.
From:[info]mlambie
Date:2005-04-10 14:56 (UTC)
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I am looking forward to Canberra, and then Sydney too.

I had a thought today - would it be fun to throw a SunRay in my bag and play with it on Ubuntu? I think it might.
From:[info]dannipenguin
Date:2005-04-10 16:03 (UTC)
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Evidently your bag is goin to be significantly larger then mine.

Are you going to the Tuesday Lightning Talks at PLUG? There is a good call for Pre-LCA drinks at the Queens.

We (the non-inclusive) also spoke on Friday, of creating a GNOME/Ubuntu-SIG, in the same manner as SLUG's Debian-SIG. Which basically means we go to the pub once a month and talk about anything but Ubuntu or GNOME.

We also discovered we pronounce Ubuntu wrong, so I propose we start "The Ubuntu Drinking Game". Rules very similar to the existing GNOME drinking game.
From:[info]iamfrenchie
Date:2005-04-11 01:25 (UTC)
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Qantas ground teams are when they were meant to have a plane in the air again in 10 minutes. They had the cargo doors open, and cargo coming out before they had even finished connecting the air bridge.

The last few times I've flown back to Perth we've been on the last flight in (before they shut Perth down because they can't get planes over to Melb/Syd because of the noise restrictions).

The ground crew are equally fast then... possibly because they want to go home.

I do have a nice big fat gripe here though, When your baggage is flagged piority and has a nice orange tag on it, the general idea is that you take it off the plane first, not last as the Perth groundcrew often seem to think.