JK's Journal » Globetrotting

Late night software ramblings

JK — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:28:09 +0000

Lifehacker clued me into creepy tonight. I’m running Ubuntu 10.4 and couldn’t compile, so I booted into Windows and installed the win32 version. I’m simultaneously impressed and ‘creeped’ out, it works amazingly well, and I only trolled my twitter account.

I’m currently trying to creep famous world leaders. Oh, and today my doc nonchalantly checked her smartphone to see if my new antibiotics clashed with my current meds (answer: Nope!). I really really do love Living In The Future.

Update: Good results on Karl Rove and Ashton Kutcher- no, I’m not calling AK a famous world leader .

Karl Rove (full source: kml):

Ashton Kutcher (full source: kml):

Europe 2010: Update

JK — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:05:10 +0000

We ate a traditional Swiss meal tonight and then went bar-hopping/ sight-seeing along Zurich’s Niederdorfstrasse tonight. It’s almost 2am, we’re back at the hotel (we leave tomorrow), I can’t sleep, and I’m polishing off the last of a Doner Kebab. All of which makes it a good time to pontificate.

We’re on the juxtaposition of Days 10 & 11 of our 12-day Europe 2010 trip; I only have 5 days of the trip successfully blogged and 6 days cataloged via Photo Albums. The upside is that the reasons are 30% technical issues and 70% lack of time due to doing so many things in Europe. I hope to catch up on the long plane ride home, or within the next week. If I let it wait more than 2 weeks, it may not ever get done, which would really suck.

I could spend time now thumbing through photos and recounting days past of memories, but I really don’t want to. I’d rather fire off a Journal article about the trip in general, “pontificate” a little, and then do random internet things until I get sleepy. I must admit- the lacking availability of random internet things is definitely something I miss. There hasn’t been ONE single public wi-fi hotspot in Germany or Switzerland, despite > 3 dozen attempts over 9 days. I keep jokingly telling QT that “free public wi-fi could take this country by storm- BY STORM!” but I know the reasons are rooted in local culture as well as technical and legal limitations.

This trip to Europe has rekindled my interest and appreciation of… well, basic humanity. To continue to babble on about the trip has the potential to undermine it’s value, because it’s an experience, and not just some online blog article.

Gute Nacht.

Europe 2010: Day 7

JK — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 20:53:55 +0000

I’m marking this post for future publishing because I need to catalog today’s events for posterity. Hopefully the timeline works out in the end.

Today was our prescheduled day for a day trip within decent range of Stuttgart. M33p suggested Garmisch, and after a little research I agreed- I’ve been hoping to see more of the mountains.

We left around 1000, went through München, and arrived on the outskirts of Garmisch around 1300. The drive was gorgeous, which is reflected in the photo album for Day 7.

Garmisch was impressively quaint yet accessible- we parked on one of the main streets, found a nice cafe for lunch, and walked around a bit before driving to Partnach gorge. The Gorge was amazing, and we took a cable car to an Alpine Hotel towards the top..

The trip home, topping out at 135mph thanks to M33p’s driving skills and bravado, was amazing. We ended up getting back later than expected, so M33p suggested Greek food and beer, and a good time was had by all. It’s after midnight and I still haven’t posted photos- time to sign off. Tomorrow is shopping + more of downtown Stuttgart, but M33p has to work so we’re on our own with our lacking German language skillz. Wish us luck.