Dreams Unlimited - Christian Peper's blog

Today I rooted my new Nexus S Android phone. It's great. The Galaxy S hardware from Samsung is a dream compared to my old trusty Acer Liquid's Quallcomm Snapdragon. Sure, the Nexus S runs on 1 GHz compared to 768 MHz for the Snapdragon. But newer is better in this case. It also helps that Gingerbread (android 2.3) is optimized for the newer hardware.

However, I need root. I want root. I hate running into something cool and nifty, only to be stopped by a pop-up screen saying "Unable to XYZ, your devices must be rooted". So I did. Mainly to install the battery saving JuiceDefender and UltimateJuice. They make my smartphone last 2-3 days instead of just one measly day. Really!

So I tried my Windows XP laptop from work, but it wouldn't recognize the Nexus S. It found it, but then failed to find drivers. Turns out, the Android SDK supplies these. But that also needs the Java SDK (78 MB). A bit much for just drivers. So I tried my Mac Mini running Snow Leopard (10.6.6)…

There is a tool that visualizes your entire LinkedIn network. Funny to see some groups form where there is common relationship or seed that binds the group. I found a group from the university in Enschede, my former colleagues from Blender aka Not a Number and a group centralized around Open Source, where the seed is RealOpen IT. :)

Just got back last weekend from a week snowboarding in Kaprun, Austria. I was invited to go with former colleagues who work at Oracle, whom I joined last year.

Our stay was great, even though it was fairly warm in the beginning (10C). Half way through, we were blessed with 30-60cm of fresh powder on the mountain Kitzsteinhorn. The valley was less fortunate, but up on the mountain it was heaven!

We stayed at a wonderful B&B in Kaprun, Dorfchalets. It is a brand new place with various separate apartments in varying sizes. From 2-8 people, I think. Very well equipped, free WiFi (at 8Mb!), DVD player and TV. Small kitchen and dishwasher and enough decent kitchen appliances and hardware. I highly recommend them, if you are thinking of going to Kaprun or Zell am See (just 5km drive). They even have a preview book made using using Blurb, that you can view online: Dorfchalets Kaprun Guest Information Preview.

Oh and if you are in the area, please treat yourself to a delicious and wonderf…

I've edited the photobook that I made as a way to remember the great time I had during my course at the academie voor gastronomie last year. January 24th is our very last day as well graduation. I honor of that fact, I've made a few alterations to the book and added a few pages. You can still preview as well as order a copy of the book on Blurb: Turbo cuisinier/gastheer | Book Preview.

Oh and mrvanes pointed me to this wonderful List of common misconceptions on Wikipedia. Brilliant!

Prolonged exposure to cold weather such as rain or winter conditions does not increase the likelihood of catching a cold.

So there... Look it up, it includes references and all! :)

Really everything you've always wondered about The SNEEZE.

Wonderful, clearly writing and illustrated blog on sneezing in humans and (small) animals. :) The elefant baby is too cute!

Minecraft is a game, ifyou will, where you build content - gardens, houses, castles, ocean ships, rockets - and other people can walk through it. I believe the object is staying alive, as you may die and other people steal something. Sounds a bit like RPG games, role playing, but different. Reminds me a lot of Alphaworld way back in 1995, Second Life, not too long ago, World of Warcraft but friendlier and Fallout.
But some people take constructing very seriously: There is a guy who built the Star Trek Enterprise on a 1:1 scale, a working (!) 8 bit computer and Planet Earth itself. Still haven't figured out if I like it or not, I am just glad the graphics are so simple that anyone can play it 24 hrs a day, because it will run easily on modern smartphones :)

Today there is a small partial eclipse. A solar eclipse this time. See the NASA Eclipse Web Site. However, I watch a satellite image of the Earth each morning, just to see the clouds and weather patterns, and I noticed a strange anomaly this morning.

Instead of the clouds becoming more and more white from the East, today the Sun rose a little and then fell again. It seems the solar eclipse is causing this morning not to be bright in some areas of the world. :)

Update: having problems uploading the animated GIF

Happy new year everyone!

As a resolution for this year, I am gonna do more blogging again and less Twittering. Or at least, I'll blog and then twitter about it. Because the other way around just does not work. I've often thought to quickly twitter something and then come back later to blog about it, but it simply is impossible. Twittering already relieves me from the urge to write and even though 140 chars is not a lot, it is writing and my urge is satisfied. Hmm that just sounded way more kinky than I had imagined! :)