Teil 1/2 (Tennis im Allgemeinen):

Teil 2/2 (Tennis & Selbstbeherrschung):

for more information:
Höchst inoffizielle Gerhard Polt - Seite

You may have noticed in the news that during the last week at least four submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Golf have broken or are experiencing technical problems. For example Guardian.co.uk, BBC.co.uk and Heise.de have reported about it. Unconfirmed sources even talk about up to 8-9 cut undersea cables.

The affected lines are vital to the Internet access of most countries in the Middle East. Due to the breakdown these countries have experienced serious disruptions in their means of communication which were still perceptible even in India. According to Heise.de the available bandwidth in India was reduced by about 60% of its original capacity.

At least three submarine cables have broken off shore. Now experts started searching for the reasons of this major blackout.

[map taken from Renesys Blog]

Some say that they could have been damaged by ships, probably when they were anchoring or trying to do so. Ok … if it was only one cable this could be reasonable, but that actually three were cut at nearly the same day which are miles away from each other? Furthermore undersea cables are shown in every nautical chart and regions in which ships could easily damage these cables are normally restricted area, so that they cannot even get near to it. Finally the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of Egypt published a press release which clearly states that no ships have been observed which could be responsible for the cut off of the cable in the Mediterranean Sea …

Another possible reason for the cables to break could have been an earthquake. Dailywireless.org reports that there was at least one earthquake in this region which occurred last Saturday. But it looks like that nearly no one sets it in relation with the demolition of the cables. Probably because no cable got cut off on the day of the earthquake …

Now of course also conspiracy theories are flourishing. On the one hand it could be a terrorist attack … yes sure, as always. On the other hand there are voices (for example mathaba.net or Schall und Rauch) who are blaming the administration and secret service of a certain country. The theories start at a kind of sabre-rattling to warn the Arabic World of opening the Iranian oil bourse and thereby establishing a fourth oil marker, denominated by non-dollar currencies. A more radical theory sees a similar event to 9/11 at dawn, as directly before 9/11 major Muslim Web sites were shut down by US governmental organizations. Independent of the motivation behind it, if these incidents have really been initiated by the government in question, it would come close to an act of war. And this would really be stupid of a country which stands for freedom and democracy (… I hope).

So concluding it is really not clear why those cables broke … concerning myself I think it was Nessie which did it in an act of desperation. Decades ago one of the most exciting adventures on earth was to travel to Loch Ness and see if one could spot Nessie. Meanwhile it takes just a few clicks wherever you are to see Nessie exposed. So naturally Nessie bit through various Internet cables to grab again public attention and to stop the virtual exhibition of itself.

And why exactly in this area? Well, if you could choose during those cold days to be in the comfortable Mediterranean Sea or Persian Golf instead of a frosty Scottish lake, what would you do?

If you are curious about where you can spot Nessie next, there is a map of all submarine cables online at telegeography.com. By the way, about 90-95% of our Internet and telephone traffic is routed through undersea cables. Hope you have a heart with us Nessie?!

All those applications at facebook are really a bit annoying. Beside steeling your time and violating your privacy they are only useful to provide some fun and keep you in contact with your friends. But what one application made possible is really exciting. Ok, it was not only the application, it was also the person of Arash Derambarsh who messed around with the French press.

As for example TechCrunch.com writes in “French Press Falls For Major Facebook Prank” it all started with a simple application called “Facebook President”. With this application Facebook users could vote for a worldwide president of Facebook. All Facebook users could run for the presidency.

Quite soon a guy got involved called Arash Derambarsh (a Frenchman) who started his own campaign via his homepage. In his program he pledged to “promote goodwill and tolerance among the three world monotheistic Faiths (Christian, Jewish and Muslim), fight against illiteracy and analphabetism and promote French-speaking communities” in case he will become president. [taken from www.facebookpresident.com]

Elections took place and Arash received the majority of votes. Short after it the French press payed attention to the newly-elected world-wide president of Facebook as he was one of their fellow countrymen. His story was covered even in traditional media like TV or newspapers.

For example:
L’Express.fr
Le Figaro.fr
La Parisienne.fr

No matter what he said (close contact with Facebook Inc., project with UNESCO, access to a special function to reach all Facebook users worldwide) or what his presidency actually implies, the French media just covered his story without verifying the facts.

A few days later the French press had to back-pedal as it showed up that he actually got the majority of votes in the Facebook president application, but that is all. End of the story. There is no connection to Facebook Inc. nor is there any to the UNESCO. His presidency is not of any importance to the Facebook community.

Applause!

This is a really great example for a well staged hoax and maybe an indication that the traditional (French) media is not that familiar with Web 2.0.


For more information see:
techCrunch.com




[image taken from www.facebookpresident.com]

Dieser Spruch ist im Umriss des Rentners zu lesen, der im Oktober 2007 in der Münchner U-Bahn niedergeschlagen wurde. Die entsprechenden Videoaufnahme wurden nun zu großformatigen Wahlplakten umfunktioniert, um für den OB Kandidaten der CSU Josef Schmid zu werben … nein, nicht NPD.

[taken from Münchner Merkur]

Hackt’s oder was?! … der Münchner CSU scheinen nun wohl auch die letzten sinnvollen Argumente für Ihren Kandidaten ausgegangen zu sein. Oder steht uns demnächst ein weiterer Parteienzusammenschluss bevor, aus dem dann möglicherweise “die ganz Rechte” hervorgeht?!

Traurig.

Mehr dazu:

Süddeutsche Zeitung
Münchner Merkur

Update: siehe auch bei muenchenblogger.de “Damit Sie nicht der Nächste sind! - Empörung über Wahlkampfplakat der CSU” und “Josef Schmid disqualifiziert sich immer mehr”.

[taken from www.howtotell.com]

… is a counterfeit copy of Microsoft Windows XP Professional, really!

In my Oxford Advanced Dictionary the term counterfeit is defined as “deliberately made so as to be exactly like sth., in order to deceive” amongst others. In respect of this interpretation I see myself obliged to slightly modify this warning:

Attention !!!

Most probably you have received a CD with your new computer or quite unlikely you have received it after handing over quite a bunch of money to your favorite dealer. So if this CD looks something like this:

[taken from www.howtotell.com]

Be aware that you have been deceived ! Although the finishing with the amazing glittering holograms might suggest that you are holding a CD with a high-end, secure, user friendly and multi-tasking operating system in your hands … I am sorry, but this is a fallacy! It is just Windows … and you might agree that you can get cheaper and presumably more beautiful saucers at your local housewares store.

But if the CD looks similar to this one:

Congratulations ! You made the right choice and are holding a CD with a real high-end, secure, user friendly and multi-tasking operating system in your hands. Even if the finishing of the CD and the way how you got it may not be as our fellows from Redmond want it. Let me guess … it was handed over to you by a long-haired, round-bellied, pizza-addicted nerd (if one may allow me to draw this meanwhile old-fashioned picture of those “Linux guys”)? Or did you even just download it from the Internet and burn it by yourself?! So as long as there is something like Ubuntu, SuSE or whatever Linux distro on the CD, you can be sure that you have chosen the right OS.

@Microsoft: Do you really think that the use of your software makes so stupid that one cannot distinguish between a genuine copy or a counterfeit copy of your masterpieces? Or let me put it another way, who at all would make an illegal copy of your software while there is software for nearly every need available for free?