Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.
                — Theophrastus

This page is divided into sections, sections into subsections and so on (pretty much like a book is). Be my guest ... feel free to walk around

Education / Skills / Teaching

Before I talk about the section topic I might say, that whatever thing I do to make a living, it must guarantee me to foster my ongoing self-education.

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.
      — Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC)

I do not have a problem working at the office from 7am to 8pm from Monday to Wednesday but starting with Thursday I would like to have the rest of the week at home where I can do part work (telecommuting) and part work on my PhD, further self-educate myself, do some FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) hacking, work on AEP (Autonomous Expedition Platform) or do gardening.

I would never do a Mo-Fr at the office job since I believe that is nonsense — people just think this status quo is best thing possible because that is mostly the only thing they know — folks are much more effective and productive if they can do at least part telecommuting. Just think of the economical impact of it ... another story. Telecommuting is a win-win situation for employers and employees (I cannot get the swine flu from coworkers ;-]). One, if not the best reason for telecommuting is

It appears quite simple to me, I am a tech head, I know a lot, have seen a lot — my experience is, that modern/professional companies allow for flexibility e.g. telecommuting. Those who do not are simply not professional ... I would not like to work there anyways so it has never been a problem in my life. The funny thing is, most non hackers/technicians do not have a clue about what kind of awesome group collaborations are possible over the net ... teamwork telecommuting that is ;-]

Bottom line is, whatever job, I care a lot about flexibility — I rather work 10 hours more per week if it gets me a flexible job (well, that has never been a problem; more offers I can take). Just listen to Frank and what he said I did it my way ... ;-]

Education

Formal education will make you a living; self education will make
you a fortune.
    — Jim Rohn

Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish,
and he'll invite himself over for dinner.
    — Calvin Keegan

Skills

WRITEME

Teaching

WRITEME

Body / Soul / Mind

WRITEME

Body

Nutrition

Sport

I love sport. I need sport. Sport makes me feel good and strong. Sport is satisfaction. Sport is fun. Sport is healthy. Sport is good to clean out your head. Sport makes you feel yourself (I am not talking about stiffness). Sport might be the reason I am not sick (not even a cold for the last ~6 years). Sport is the reason why I sleep like a little kitten. Sport is fun ... ah, already said that ;-]

No matter how busy I am or what I do, I simply take the time (one hour per day) to do sports. Anybody who does not have the time to do sports does something substantially wrong in life. It appears to be a simple question to me. Do I want to become someone who stayed young at heart or do I want to be a wrack at the age of fifty or so?

I also think, because sport makes me feel good and healthy I am a lot more efficient and competitive as I would be without any sports. When I am tired at around 9pm, I do sports for an hour or so which revives me more than any coffee could ever do besides I am not betraying my body but I team up with him. Now, stand up, walk around for a bit and think about that last sentence ...

Anaerobic Exercise

I was a little into bodybuilding ... in fact, I was an animal around the age of 22 or so. I went to the gym ~5 days a week for 2-4 hours each. I ate approximately the same amount of food as ~3-5 normal folks do (just high quality food). I did 170kg at the bench press (that is ~3 females at once ;-]) and 2x55kg with dumbells, 400+ kg at the leg press.

It was a crazy and intense time — studies, work, sport, eating was pretty much all I did for around 6 years or so. Crazy and over, that is what it is. I now look pretty normal when I wear a sweater since I lost almost 20kg during the last 4 years or so. My formal education, job and the fact that I served in the army for one year caused it that I had to change on my sports habits.

The main reason for the loss in weight is mostly that I have another nutrition model nowadays and I do a lot more aerobic sport since four years or so which is go running out in the nature or, because it is uncomplicated, using my cross trainer at home for an hour or so each day. This is cool since I can watch movies, have VoIP (Voice over IP) calls and do a lot of other useful things while I perform my workout.

I am planning to do a change to the current situation (80% aerobic and 20% anaerobic) to a fifty-fifty situation again. I just like the feeling of cold steel and testosterone-in-the-air to much ... it actually is a very peaceful and almost religious thing if you manage to pick the right gym and get together with some decent, smart and single-minded dudes.

However, this time it will be different. The 170kg times are definitely over for me — I do not have to proof it anymore. I am going to work in a way to get a nice shape again (though not bad today) but I am certainly not going to join some arms race again as I did when I was a teen.

Maybe a plus of 7kg pure mussels (~12kg total weight) over the next 4-5 years ... that is smart, easy and doable since I do have the whole How to train, Nutrition and Relaxation knowledge which is self-taught.

This goal is realistic since all it takes is time which I am simply including into my schedule since it is important to me. Will and long-term persistence has never been a problem in my life. Watch me growing again ;-]

Aerobic Exercise

As I mentioned in the anaerobic part, I either go running outside or stay at home and climb my

Cross trainer

For practical reasons, I mostly exercise on the cross trainer — I already mentioned, I check my emails, do phone calls, watch the news/movie or read a few things to stay informed while exercising — none of which I could do when I go running outside. Well, running outside has the benefit of being in the nature which I enjoy a lot.

Endurance, Intelligence, Mentality and Prejudices

Sport, especially bodybuilding is not just physically challenging but also mentally very challenging. No one besides the folks who really engage seriously with bodybuilding knows that.

I am not talking about those fools who start, then the become impatient so they start using drugs and then after two years they simply draw their attention to the next challenge in life, recognizing (if at all?) their surrender for the last one challenge.

I do not know about such people but assuming that this is their mentality (giving in to somebody or something) what kind of personalities are they? What jobs do they have? What do they believe in? I do not know ...

I am also not talking about all the wannabes (those which careers started when they entered the gym for the first time — they pretend to know all about bodybuilding after a few years. Fact is they believe they know but in the end, they do not know anything since they did not start with books).

Anybody who starts with bodybuilding should not believe anything what others, seemingly knowing folks (those who have the big mouth) tell them. A year or a half before you start in the gym, go and start reading a few books and you will be able to easily expose the usual big mouth folks at the gym. Two years later they will ask you what kind of drugs you take since you are making progress and they are not. Tell them about the books! Tell them also about decent nutrition and single-mindedness.

It is also no problem for me (never was; to much self-confidence) that usual folks think bodybuilders have a small ego, are dumb and they have small dicks and ridiculous tiny balls etc. etc. ... all the usual prejudices we all know. I think only stupid people have prejudices.

While others were drinking and doing all the bad stuff teenagers do, I was in the gym — I grew personally, mentally and I could have almost made may bachelor in medicine after seven years ... bodybuilding is great if you are serious about it.

Planing into entering a new Dimension of knowing Yourself?

Anybody who wants to start bodybuilding must be certain about a few things

• Before you even entering the gym on a regular, read a few books.
• It takes time — at least 4x2-3 hours a week for at least four years. Take a break for six months or more and you can start over again (more or less) ...
• It is expensive. I am talking about a lot of high quality food and up to ~7 meals a day. You know you do wrong whenever you feel hungry.
• If you are not a single-minded and heavy enduranced person do not even start. You will become depressed and simply fail. It takes around a year or two until you see first results (shape). Increase in strength appears very quickly though (~3 months).

Soul

I do not know/understand what the term soul means. Maybe that is a good point to mention that I am an agnostic. If soul means being harmonious with oneself and his environment, then yes, Suno has a lot of soul — always a funny finch ...

Mind

Stay Informed

In order to stay informed, I mostly use state of the art technology i.e. it is more than 7 years ago that I really read the last newspaper (news on paper that is ...). I prefer more flexible, interactive and non-biased news that fit onto fingernail size storage media or that I can watch whenever I want without the need to rush home onto the sofa to watch what they want at the time they want ... that is nonsense ...

I am a person who prefers a great deal of self-determination thus

• I want to pick the news I find crucial and interesting.
• The information I want in the shortest possible time — that is what I want.
• The time I consume news should be up to me and not determined by them.
• I want to consume news wherever I am i.e. commuter train, long haul flight, during lunch at my favorite Indian restaurant or sitting on the park bench listening to some lovely finches telling about love, making fun on chipmunks and blissfully jetting around from tree to tree.
• Clearly, what I abandoned is eat what is on the menu in the scheduled order at a specific time at a specific place ... That is nonsense. I am not a slave.
• Unbiased news is what I want. Different sources on the same matter quickly on my disposal when I want to get the real picture.
• I want news in different formats i.e. audio, video and text.

I will now give you some notions how I make the above happening.

Text

Let us start with how I consume information by reading. I make heavy use of news data feeds. Those feeds are not just from CNN (Cable News Network), Al Jazeera or BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) but from anything I am interested in e.g. could also be a feed from a friends website or the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations system) feed, telling my about what shares I might drop and others I might buy in.

What I need to consume those feeds is a computer and a piece of software called Aggregator. Which aggregator you use is up to your personal likings — mine are Sage and Gnus.

Please note that you can read/watch them even if you are on the go since you can previously automatically download them to your tiny 11 inch notebook featuring a SSD (Solid State Drive) and other nifty things — thus, what you read in the plane next to the common old-school newspaper guy will either never be on seen in newspapers or the guy next to you has to wait ~1-2 days until your up-to-date information hits the old-school media.

Below are some pictures showing my desktop and Sage with several feeds — leftmost is the BBC world edition feed, the wikinews feed in the middle and right image shows the Engaged feed.

The images show my desktop split into tree parts. At the top there is a horizontal part that is not of interests for us now. Below this part we got two others. The left one showing Sage and the right (the big one) the current news feed article chosen with Sage. The left window is again split into two sections, the one at the top shows all my feeds that I am currently watching respectively reading more or less regular.

The window at the bottom shows all currently available articles from one particular feed i.e. if you take the BBC image you see all headlines in chronological order. I can now use the window in the lower left corner you quickly get an overview and just pick what I am interested in — thus I save a lot of time and just get what I am interested in, up-to-date and when and where I want.

If you too want use Sage then get it. You have to use Firefox also known as Iceweasel if you are with DebianGNU/Linux.

Audio

Currently (September 2007) the number of audio podcasts available is breath taking. You can use Sage to listen to them or you might prefer another aggregator. Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/directory/station/worldservice/ or http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/ or http://www.podcast.net/ etc. Just tune into any audio podcast you are interested in and enjoy.

Video

Follow this link and read about how I watch video podcasts also known as vodcasts. I am used to watch CNN and BBC as well as Al Jazeera video podcasts mainly. Usually I download them so I can watch them during I am on the go e.g. tube, bus, plane etc.

I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns
it on, I go to the library and read a good book.
      — Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)

Maybe this is also a good point to tell the reader that I do not have a TV set anymore¹. Not because I cannot afford one or I can not decide which one to pick — TV in general is 95% nonsense. The 5% rest would still mean ... well, I already mentioned it above. Plus there is zero interactivity with TV. I am a human being not a stone. Human beings tend to interact with their environment ... Greetings to the TV industry!

Reading

This subsection list books that I am about to read respectively have finished reading already. I started keeping track in late 2008 i.e. all books I read before are not listed here.

• The order a book is listed below represents the planned reading schedule in chronological order.
  • A book listed below but without a start date is scheduled for reading.
  • One listed and having a start date is currently being read.
  • One with both, a start and an end date, has been read. Some books I tend to read twice. That may happen in a linear manner i.e. starting at page 1 then page 2 and so on until the last page. If not linear, I re-read some particular chapters and the like which are of special interests respectively I did not fully grasp reading it the first time.
• It may happen that I read more than one book at a time — either because they supplement each other plus I tend to never trust a single source of information. However, I may also read books in parallel that have absolutely nothing do to with each other e.g. one being technical and the other one being about some philosophical subject.

All men by nature desire knowledge.
      — Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

The skill of writing is to create a context in which
other people can think.
      —Edwin Schlossberg

Relaxing

I am still learning, trying hard to become an expert on Relaxation as well ;-]

Culture

My Definition of Culture

Some say the distinction between men and animal is the ability to notice and further on create culture. I agree on that because I am not an expert here but it sounds sane to me. I am not a fan of something particular but i like diversity.

We who revel in natures diversity and feel instructed by every animal
tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the
Cretaceous extinction.
    — S. J. Gould

Because I like diversity I am pretty much interested in anything that names itself an important cultural experience — which of course is fully up the eye of the beholder and therefore renders this sentence completely meaningless and absolutely meaningful at once. But I must say the probably most interesting thing for me is to actually feel culture — that is not going into museums and the like but do a lot of traveling. A gallery, museum, classical|modern+funky concert or even the opera is sometimes quite tempting to me but I can also enjoy the roughest pub celebration or night@the_club somewhere on the globe if it reflect my current mood ... again it is all about self-determination and the having the possibility to choose and not being told.

Patterning your life around others opinions is nothing more than slavery.
    — Lawana Blackwell

My bottom-line regarding culture is, I like diversity since

Specialization is for Insects.
      — Robert A. Heinlein

Music

Totally important! I simply cannot be without music. Having a bad day? Having troubles?

Candy, Joe, Bruce, Nina, Katie and Frank, they always help — add a cup of yummy green tea and some cookies to it and you find me grinning like a little kitten that managed to catch its first mouse ;-]

Many say you can tell a lot about a person by their taste in music ... Not sure that is true. Not sure it matters at all. Anyways, here is mine:

The artist thumbnail size corresponds to the cumulative percentage for each artist I listened to

A short sample, Candy Dulfer, song called Lilly was here

The gentleman as I am, I provide my visitors with yet another version (you may hear the same twice in case you are caching ...)

Bruce Springsteen, Sade, Breaking Benjamin (especially the songs So Cold and You), Mariah Carey, Eminem, Dean Martin, Justin Timberlake, Manowar, Frank Sinatra, Aaliyah, Michael Jackson, Nelly Furtado, Antonio Vivaldi, Madonna, Armand van Helden, Joe Cocker, Alicia Keys, Marianne Faithfull, Destiny's Child, Iron Maiden (especially the live version of Wasting Love), Michael Lewis, Samuel Barber, Wolfsheim, HIM, Basshunter, Katie Melua, Norah Jones, Metallica, Apocalyptica, Claude Debussy, Eric Clapton, Linkin Park, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Cassandra Wilson, Ludwig van Beethoven, Diana Krall, Prince, ACDC, Jay-Z, George Michael, John Legend, Otis Redding, Johann Sebastian Bach, U2, a-ha, Bob James, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Deep Dish, Christina Aguilera, ATB, Brandy, Erykah Badu, Stevie Wonder, Candy Dulfer, Missy Elliot, Moby, Jamie Cullum, Ashanti, John Coltrane, Seether (especially the song Out of my way), Miles Davis, etc.

/me also listens to stuff like this when he is in the mood e.g. during his daily workout ...

During intense hacking ... either some metal or classical music

Last.fm has a tag called classical. I made this widget below so the reader can listen to classical music as he read this page or does anything else. Just click the play button. You need to have flash enabled ...

Hackers also take breaks ...

Morning rush hour, cooking, doing nasty stuff with chicks next door, dressing up for the weekend night to come and such ...

Just chillin ...

Feeling Good

One of my favorite songs ...

Birds flying high
You know how I feel
Sun in the sky
You know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by
You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good
I'm feeling good

Fish in the sea
You know how I feel
River running free
You know how I feel
Blossom on the tree
You know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know
Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
Sleep in peace when the day is done, that's what I mean
And this old world is a new world
And a bold world
For me
Fooor me

Stars when you shine
You know how I feel
Scent of the pine
You know how I feel
Oh freedom is mine
And I know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
hu
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life

It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
It's a new life
For me

And I'm feeling good
I'm feeling good
I'm feeling so good
I feel so good

I do of course not use CDs anymore (well, last time I visited grandma I have seen a few CDs ... had to touch them ... awesome stuff but way to cumbersome to deal with it) since a decade or so, even the casual mp3 is old-school to me. I listen to on-line radio streams either live or I simply record them to listen to them on the go. I am a member of the Last.fm social music network. Follow this link and read about how I watch video podcasts, listen to Last.fm and other audio sources etc. Hint: those folks also enjoying Last.fm might tune into the tag called easy listening. I often have it as background music when I do non-challenging tasks like answering emails and the like.

Finally, you can see/hear to what I am listening right now² respectively get a notion of my artist quilt

Eating and Drinking

Tea

There is the philosophical and cultural aspect with tea.

... tea is one of the mainstays of civilization ...
      — George Orwell (1903 - 1950)

Whenever I talk about tea, I am not talking about that kind of tea that can be bought from the random supermarket i.e. the kind of tea sold in tea bags.

I am talking about buying tea at specialized dealers where you also get expert consultation if you want to. The supermarket tea bag tea is of bad quality compared to what you get if you buy at a specialized dealer.

A cup of black tea always makes me bouncy++ so I use it like medicine, once a day mostly at around 3pm. Green tea with ginger on the other hand is also quite vivifying but I rather understand it as a yummy beverage. There are of course many other sorts of tea aside from black and green tea which I enjoy a lot.

It often happens that I drink some herbs tea before I go to bed — believe it or not, there are so many herb tea flavours that taste yummy. This herb tea thing before bed is something really good. In combination with daily sports I do, It lets me sleep so good and deep that I am fully recharged after say 5-7 hours of sleep. I never wake up in between, do not hear a single noise even if neighbours had a party going on, dream of great exciting things and it does not take me more than around ~5 minutes to fall asleep.

Aside from the health and making me zippy consideration, tea is pure culture to me — it is about the situation:

For me, the perfect evening is the one, where I find myself listening to some smooth jazz music, hacking some free software and all that next to being softly touched by some yummy tea, some slices sugar mellon, cheese, prosciutto crudo and a glass of red wine.

Leisure

I have non. I do not need one. I do not want one. What others call work is my 365-days-per-year-obsession. However, obsession is a young men's game ...

Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are
busy about can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely.
    — Lao Tsu

As of now, there is nothing I favor more than to be free. Rome, Berlin, London, New York City or little further down to Sao Paolo ... I love them ... I can grab my notebook, enter the bus to downtown, choose a fine coffeehouse sit down and work or if I am in the mood to do so, enter a plane and do my work somewhere far from where I am currently. I am lucky man since the only thing I need is a connection to the Internet, the thing between my ears and a notebook — so I am completely geographically independent (the electrical impulse travels at speeds of ~ 2/3 the speed of light — a little more than the random-everyday-same-office-commuter does).

Work

Yes, working I do — at least if this is the definition of doing something and in return getting something else (mostly money these days). So, I work a lot and hard but it is fun because savanna is huge and I decide for myself where to run to:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster
than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes
up, you'd better be running.
      — Unknown

Nonetheless, one should be wise — diligent alone will not make you rich, happy or satisfied. If not careful, it might destroys you ... it is utterly important to know your own limits and accept them — we are individuals.

You work very hard. Don't try to think as well.
    — Unknown

Could that be you? If so, spend a little more time thinking and a little less time working. In this, I got another one

What no one else than a writer can ever understand is that a
writer is working when he's staring out the window.
    — Unknown

Satisfaction: The work I do has to be fun, make sense to me and my environment, demanding in an intellectual sense, provide a high level of self-determination combined with good team working and of course get me huge amounts of money.

Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
      — Leo Rosten (1908 - )

All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn't for money, it's for fun.
Money's just the way we keep score.
                — Henry Tyroon

Teamwork: With modern businesses or if one is engaged with some non-profit organization or even with today's private affairs — it takes a lot of different professions/skills/personalities to get things going and create impact on the ground i.e. many individuals working as if they were a single huge, healthy and powerful organism is what good teamwork determines (that is at least one of my definitions).

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
      — Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)

Coming together is a beginning;
    keeping together is progress;
        working together is success.
    — Unknown

A picture tells more than a thousand words ...

Being realistic about teamwork: However, folks need to be realistic. I just had an idea that describes best how I think about teamwork — its all about white ants. Those fellows are individuals but share a common goal — let us build this thingy higher ... let us make it really fat ;-]

That idea and picture of white ants just crossed my minds eye because, while I had lunch this day, I was watching Al Gore's speech (via videocast) one day after he received the Nobel Peace Prize. There he said something great:

If you need to go quick, go alone.
If you need to go far, go together.
      — Al Gore, quoting some African tribe by himself he said ...

He then also said (referring to his/our efforts to stop climate change and global warming)

Now, we need to go far and we need to do it quick ...
      — Al Gore, first official speech after receiving the Peace
          Nobel Prize

It is so with teamwork as well. Nowadays we need to go far but we also need to do it quick. It is important that we recall what the smart African man thinks about things ... If we work in teams, we have to have individual space for folks to be creative in their own way — it then becomes teamwork when we join and merge our results and so forth until some common goal is achieved. Being realistic about team work is acknowledging just this — therefore once again

If you need to go quick, go alone.
If you need to go far, go together.
      — Al Gore, quoting some African tribe by himself he said ...

I am a good teamworker, you can call me white-Suno-individual-ant-that-goes-far-and-quick ;-]

Money: Personally I do not need money or wealth. I am just forced to acquire it since others ask me to hand it over to them for various things. In fact, we are living in a world where the amount of money one posses equals the degree of self-determination and freedom that he is able to enjoy — I did not make this world so do not claim me ... Since the latter (self-determination and freedom) is something I find important++ over all other things, having a lot money seems to be of advantage. However, I am certainly not on of those fools which have huge amounts of money and screw up because of piggishness. Money is simply a tool to me. I just need it to fulfil my dreams.

Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as
well.
                — Lazarus Long

however,

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.
                — unknown

... I just spend 2 hours unloading ~3 tons of coal for my aunt so ... more money would result in installing a geothermal exchange heat pump at her place too, ergo good for mother nature and good for me because it frees time for more important things ...

Keywords describing my Work

The below lists a selection of some of my tech skills/knowledge but nothing business related or skills I got during working at McKinsey for example.

• Philosophy/Ethics:
  • FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) if possible
• Software:
  • Development
    • Requirements
    • Languages Python, C, C++, .NET, Perl, Bash, Lisp, etc.
    • Implementation/Testing
    • Constantly writing protocols
    • Writing the product manual
  • Project Management
  • Life-cycle Management
  • User coaching
  • Initial and ongoing customer support for the whole solution stack e.g. adaptations to the product, reviews, improvements, etc.
• Platforms:
  • Unix/Linux, mainly DebianGNU/Linux (over 12 years experience)
  • since my division just does Unix/Linux, Microsoft support is available from another division in our company (we are also a gold certified Microsoft partner)
• IT Security:
  • Secure Equipment Housing (24/7/365) i.e. only authorized personal, biometric access control into the Datacenter, CCTV surveillance, security personal on-site, etc.
  • Mail/VoiP/Messager Spam
  • Firewall (OSI Layer 2-7)
  • Kernel based security e.g. grsync, smack, virtualization/isolation
  • UTM (Unified Threat Management) e.g. Endian or Ebox
  • etc.
• Virtualization:
  • Xen (paravirtualization)
  • Linux-VServer (OS virtualization)
  • OpenVZ/Virtuozzo (OS virtualization)
  • VMWare Family (emulation/virtualization)
  • QEMU (emulation)
  • various sorts of storage virtualization (mostly SAN based)
• High Availability:
  • Hosting e.g. Multi-homing, redundant power circuits, etc.
  • Hardware e.g. RAID (Redundancy Arrays of Independent Disks), redundant power supplies, etc.
  • Software e.g. Zope ZEO, LVS, etc.)
  • Programming e.g. work based on certain development principles and paradigms in order to ensure high availability and reliance in software products
• Hard/Software Scalability:
  • SANs (Storage Area Networks), IBM BladeCenter, etc.
  • Linux Virtual Server, ZEO (Zope Enterprise Objects)
• Information Management:
  • CMSs (Content Management Systems) e.g. Plone or
  • custom build systems
• Hardware Vendors:
  • IBM, Cisco, HP, Sun, Juniper, Linksys, Nortel, etc.
• Coaching:
  • all the things I know/do
• Datacenter:
  • Provisioning the Equipment e.g. Rittal 19" frames, Servers
• Protocols:
  • Fibre Channel, TCP/IP, BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), several other proprietary protocols, etc.

Fashion

You men out there probably think you already know how to
dress for success. You know, for example, that you should not wear
leisure suits or white plastic belts and shoes, unless you are going
to a costume party disguised as a pig farmer vacationing at Disney
World.
    — Dave Barry, "How to Dress for Real Success"

Yes, Sirs, if that is all you know and feel about fashion then you bore me. Get rid of your hideous-every-men's-suits please. Nowadays elegant avant-garde clothing is what was a knights armor back then in the hard and glories times.

Sometimes people ask me Why do you always wear the same clothes? And why always black clothes?

It may appear so that I always wear the same clothes but in fact I am not. I simply have ~40 identical shirts, ties and about ~28 identical suits etc. So yes, I change clothes every day but I do not exchange the red for the white shirt but the black one from today with its 100% identical twin from the closet which is of course washed and ironed.

The reason for all of this is simple. It makes live easier when you do not have to decide what clothes to pick. I simply pull out the next identical piece and that is it. Saves a lot of time. If I buy new clothes, I go and buy several 100% identical pieces and simple exchange the whole stock of shirts, socks or whatever with the new ones.

About the black thing: Well, the black suit fits for anything — funeral, business meeting, party etc. I guess black is also my favorite color aside from white — colored stuff just makes me nervous.

Work has to be done here. More to come in late 2010 or so ...

Pleasure

Is fully up to an individuals capability to manage his living in a harmonic and peaceful but striving manner.

Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise
our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows,
pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad
or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by
day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties,
absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit...
                — Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease

For me pleasure is the work I do, the people I meet and the places I go because and only because I do it as a free men and because I am a free men. To be more precise self-determination is what brings pleasure into my life and a would fight until death if somebody would try to take it away from me.

Self-determination

1. Determination of one's own fate or course of action without compulsion; free will.
2. Freedom of the people of a given area to determine their own political status; independence. (The Free Dictionary)

We need to look at this term from two different points of view. The first one being the one that tells about the integrity and self-determination focused towards whole nations. The second one, and as I find the more appropriate point of view with regards to my website that is in fact about an individual is the one focusing on self-determination on a per individual basis — that is a group of people consisting of at least one person. Self-determination is a central principle of human rights — my understanding of it is:

Humans should be able to realize their own ideas, dreams and desires without being disabled or hassled from the outside. Acting, learning and living in a self-determined manner can be seen as flags of an adult human being that acts in free will, autonomous and responsible not just for himself but also for his environment. That in mind, self-determination is by far not to be confused with arbitrariness and self-righteousness since such behaviour would harm a human beings environment and in turn penetrate somebody else "space", decreasing his degree of self-determination. (Suno Ano)

If you are able to live without breaking this basic principle you might unfortunately be part of a minority.

Traveling

Wanderlust definitely found another victim here! It will be wanderlust that will make certain things happen.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page.
      — St. Augustine of Hippo

Into that ...

Start spreadin' the news
I'm leavin' today
I want to be a part of it
New York, New York.

These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
New York, New York.

I want to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep
And find I'm king of the hill,
Top of the heap...

These little-town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York.
If I can make it there,
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you
New York, New York.

New York, New York
I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
And find I'm A number 1,
Top of the list,
King of the hill,
A number 1...

These little town blues
Are melting away
I'm gonna make a brand new start of it
In old New York.
And if I can make it there,
I'm gonna make it anywhere.
It's up to you
New York, New York.
New York!

Wish List

Well, as long as I do not posses the AEP (Autonomous Expedition Platform) I will jet around the globe as it satisfies my current desires. I will put information regarding my wish list here.

Places I would like to go next

WRITEME

Places I have been

WRITEME

Software

This section got its own dedicated page assigned.

Hardware

This section got its own dedicated page assigned.

Goals in Life

You better know what you want from life pretty early before others do for you.
      — Billy Bob Thornton in "The Astronaut Farmer"

Yes, you better do! I know what I want accomplish in life. I look at this future picture of mine and it appears crystal clear in front of my minds eye ...

Time matters

Absolutely crucial to accomplish my goals in life is self-reliance, self-determination, freedom and time time time ...

Because of the fact that time is pretty much the most important thing to me — I need time to grow personally, accumulate knowledge, fuel my obsessions and simply to become a better human being — I care a lot how I manage my time and what things I spend time on.

Unfortunately, there is never enough time but I learned to optimize my tasks and life in general in order to waste as less time as possible — I am pretty sure I am well in this area.

I should also note that I am very stingy ... not with material things like money and the like but with time. I often refuse to go to invitations or to meet somebody or to do something simply because I do not have the time respectively I want to use my time for other, more important things.

Also, I have to say, I hate all sorts of voice communication (better meet in person or not talking at all) i.e. phone, VoIP (Voice over IP), etc. That stuff wastes so much time that it scares the heck out of me by even thinking about it — and believe it or not — when I do calls the way I find it proper (all under one minute) folks mostly seem to be utterly disappointed/offended.

To me it seems people just use phones because they are bored (many do, you will agree ...). I am not, so generally do not call me. Some may also need something that works fast since they need immediate answers to their current problems ... Does this make it my problem?

Lack of planning on your part doesn't consitute an emergency
on my part.
      — Unknown

People should really use email and chat a lot more, that is faster, more concise and believe it or not one can check the conversation logs so he does not have to call you a second time, asking the same thing more than once ...

Chatting is cool. Works with your children as well as with your parents and grandparents. Go, teach them! One how-to-chat party might save you a lot of time in the future ... besides, it is fun.

So, after this little journey into a maniacs mind I am now going to behave again ... I promise ;-]

Random Minds

Well, where do I begin? I am Suno-I-simply-rock-harder-Ano ;-] ... Suno Ano is a pen name which is a good thing for several reasons¹.

You have to know, Suno is an artist, he writes code, conceives lovely concepts and plays around with tech stuff all the time — surely, this is a beautiful art ... become an artist too!

Before I begin putting people to sleep with the boring parts i.e. Curriculum Vitae, I decided to write whatever crosses my mind as I go on writing this page — no particular order, no limits, no "What might people think if I ..." — just a cup of yummy tea, some biscuits, jazz/blues music and a weekend night to come ...

The right Blues at the Right Time

Into that ... blues ... The left image shows the Fleetwood Mac folks. One great song they made is called Dreams ... You can listen to a short sample (click the play button below; you need to enable java script and flash). The right image is a screenshot taken from my desktop while I was just listening to the song (one of the currently 15102 songs in my collection).

Fleetwood Mac

was a successful British blues band of the late 1960s. The band was started by guitarist Peter Green, who recruited the rhythm section of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers: drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass guitarist John McVie. Green himself had replaced a departing member, Eric Clapton, as the lead guitarist of the Bluesbreakers; Green and McVie had appeared on Mayall's 1967 A Hard Road album. The band employed another bassist, Bob Brunning, until John McVie was persuaded to join the band. Slide-guitarist and Elmore James devotee, Jeremy Spencer, rounded out the lineup.

Now here you go again
You say you want your freedom
Well who am I to keep you down?
It's only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat .. drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost ...
And what you had ...
You know what you lost

Oh Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
They say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean you'll know
You'll know

Now Here I go again I see the crystal vision
I keep my visions to myself
It's only me who wants to
Wrap around your dreams and ...
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Dreams of Loneliness
Like a heartbeat .. drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost ...
Who says what you had ...
Ooh and what you lost

Thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
They say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean you'll know

Oh thunder only happens when it's raining
Players only love you when they're playing
They say women they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean you'll know
You'll know ...
You'll know ...
You will know
Ooo you'll know

Obsession and Personality

Obsession is a young man's game, and my only excuse is that I never grew old.
      — Michael Caine

Aside from the fact that I like Michael Caine — his personality is great, the movies he acted in are unusual in a good/interesting way, I like some of his sayings especially when they fit into my world view. Looking up the term Obsession in a dictionary there should be a picture of me (yes I know, there are ~6 billion others out there).

It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions.
      — Robert Bly

I totally agree with that. Have you ever seen obsessed people that where bored? Into that — I even fail to remember when I have been bored the last time. Must have been years ago ... There is always something to do for the obsessed mind. I am restless ...

So what is it that I am actually obsessed with? The reader will find the answer by walking around on this website. Simply saying I am obsessed with my work would be totally wrong. I do not work. I get payed for being obsessive all the time. To me, the second most important thing after being healthy is self-determination. Self-determination leads to self-reliance, forms outstanding personalities which are capable for good leadership.

Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one's own
person is its ultimate reward.
      — Patricia Sampson

Personalities need to grow over time — they do not appear out of nowhere, they are unique and they are very valuable to our society — in fact they may be the only reason why the human race does not perish into chaos.

Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice
or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
      — Malcolm X (1925 - 1965)

Freedom, that is what makes great personalities and that is what great personalities pass on to the society. Somehow all that is chained together — freedom, self-determination, self-reliance, leadership, blissful life, being healthy, ...

If I had listened to everyone who said it would be impossible,
I had never been flying.
      — Amelia Earhart

What really matters to me

I use this section to write about the things that I find important to me and my environment. There are so many things most people take for granted but then they forget that at some point, someone probably died in the course of making those things available to our society.

We tend to forget that happiness does not come as a result of getting something we do not have,
but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
      — Frederick Keonig

We should be grateful for the things we have already! Some of them might be subject of this section since I find it important to talk about them, even if it is just to remind people ...

Politics and Freedoms

Today, our society has had its focus forced into inward looking selfishness and greed. We all suffer when greed gets out of control.

Poverty wants much but avarice everything.
      — Publilius Syrus

You?

Greed ravished the world in October 2008 at a massive cost to the rest of society. Yet we could see it coming well before it hit. Would you stand on a railway line watching the approaching train and simply stand there a let it hit you? That is what our governments have done.

Government, elected by the people, came to make decisions in the best interest of the corporations, in the belief that the corporation will then look after the people. This does not work. In a society as wealthy as ours, the aim of government should be to govern, rather than to smooth the way for more wealth in the hands of so few at the cost of the lives of many people. Successful and wealthy societies must look after its people, helping all to have an education, good health, housing, communications, and care. Freedoms underpin a functioning society, one that looks after its citizens.

Fundamentally, we need to nurture freedom and openness, to maintain the basis of a good society. And there are many forces working against this in our society today, often disguised as endeavours to preserve our freedoms!

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need,
but not every man's greed.
      — Mahatma Gandhi

From an information technology perspective, the freedom to share ideas expressed in software, to build on and innovate from the ideas of others, is just one part of the picture. But we all need to strive to bring peace, happiness, and freedom, to all, whoever they are, the world over.

This is why I support the ideas of free (as in libre or freedom) open source software or FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) in short. This empowers everyone and anyone, with basic access to computing resources, to learn from those who have gone before,

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.
      — Margaret Fuller (1810 - 1850)

and to contribute in a positive way to all of society, not just the mega corporations that have just one goal — profit, for themselves and their shareholders at all cost.

Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed.
      — Bhagavad Gita

Liberty

Liberty is generally considered a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the ability to act according to his or her own will. (Wikipedia)

It appears quite simple to me. A life without liberty is not worth living. Any form of life wants and needs liberty — there is no life without liberty. I can understand anybody who rather prefers to die when fighting for liberty than remaining in slavery.

The man who runs may fight again.
      — Menander (342 BC - 292 BC)

For some time now, we have been living in a world where a lot of bad things happened in the name of liberty (e.g. the invasion of Irak, something I suppose many US citizens never wanted but then their rulers did not care at the time) and where liberty itself was eroded for many people.

Nowadays, those who make the most noise about liberty, since they might want us to think that they are acting in the name of liberty, mostly do exactly the opposite. I do not believe that those people are utterly uneducated or suffer from mental disease. Rather I believe there is a plan and/or certainly there is just ignorance and disrespect for the lives of others. All individuals, governments etc. who take away freedom and liberty from others are bad and should, rightfully, be fought in any possible way until equality and peace based on mutual respect is restored again.

Fighting fire with fire only gets you ashes!
      — Abigail van Buren (1918 - )

True, sometimes however, throughout human history, this seems to be the only way in order to restore liberty and individual rights to each and every individual once taken away.

I have a lot of friends around the globe and so it happens that I love the United States of America and their citizens. I also love China and the folks there and I like Israel as well as the Arabs but we have to understand that there are no good nations and bad nations. There are just nations lead by good man or bad man — the only guilt that builds upon the shoulders of citizens is if they let them to be ruled by bad man rather than good man.

We, the common people, have always had fun when sitting together, share our dreams and celebrate the little things in life no matter where we are from, what skin color we have or what clothes we wear.

My hopes are that the current (October 2007) US government will vanish soon so the good guys may come back. I also hope the bad guys in Chinas government (those who suppress their own citizens) will vanish soon and I hope that the right-wing fractions on either site of the Arab and Israeli conflict may vanish soon so peace can settle once and forever.

Why is peace and liberty-for-all (tm) so complicated? We should turn all troopers into gardeners, musicians, painters, hackers, researchers ... that would make the world an awesome place ;-]

Artist’s Statement:

In this work, I wanted to capture a poetic view of freedom, and how we
stereotype non-democratic countries, versus how they view us. As a
gift from France, my rendition of Statue of Liberty is a valuable
symbol, because France is our biggest critic in our War on Terrorism
and our most visible symbol of freedom… If a bird has only known
captivity it’s whole life, when set free it may not know how to
survive… these birds represent the countries we are trying to free
from political oppression in America’s attempt to do the right thing.

Finally I wanted to say, that it is not enough to criticize — we have to actively monitor governments around the world in order to prevent them from turning against their own citizens and other peaceful nations.

If you do not care about things we have in our possession today, we will find it missing tomorrow. Most folks at my age seem to have forgotten about their grandparents dying and crippling for liberty — you decadent idiots!

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of
each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty
bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights
secure.
                — Albert Einstein

At any times when it had been possible for just a few to determine what information is passed to many others, it ended in something opposite from democracy, peace and stability ... think about that and then ask yourself about the technology you use?

Are you supporting democracy by your choice for technology? You may start as simple as using a free OS (Operating System) like DebianGNU/* for example.

Thanks to FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) and modern IT (Information Technology) we (the common people) have the ultimate powers. We can break military suppression and make governments resign if they act in non-peaceful manner to anybody ... think of what twitter did with regards to Iran in 2009 for example.

It is exactly about those reasons why one should not just think about democracy as an important thing — please also think about FLOSS and free technology as prerequisites for democracy and peace.

FLOSS is not just about Ohhh it is so practical to have the source code so I can alter it ... lallalala ... sunny day ... if that is your definition of free software, then you are a) wrong and b) know nothing about the philosophy behind it.

Individual Rights

I am speaking about

• Freedom from surveillance
• Personal privacy
• Anonymity
• Equal protection
• Due process
• Freedom to read, write, think, speak, associate, and travel
• The right to make your own choices about sex, reproduction, marriage, and death
• The right to dissent

  

That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is
to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and
property, and when the government assumes other functions it is
usurpation and oppression.
    — Alabama, Declaration of Rights Article I Section 35