knobitobi blog » Tobi

Switzerland 2010

Tobi — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:43:54 +0000

View into the Rhone valley and to the mountains south of it

I allowed myself a 4-day short vacation in Switzerland this year. While my parents, my younger brother and my sister were already on vacation there I joined them on wednesday last week.
On thursday my brother and I decided to have a ride in his Prius this day. First we tried a road close to the village were we stayed (Albinen). We drove as high as possible and finished just ahead of a melking station at 2330m.

In the Geisspfad area

The car of my brother was dirty as hell after that because of all that cow doo around After that we drove to the Mattmark reservoir to have a hike around it. One tunnel around that lake gives one a near-death experience because one only sees the end of the tunnel ahead while the tunnel itself isn’t lighted.

View from the Nufenenpass

I had the feeling walking throuhg a giant dark hall. Amazing!
On friday I wanted to hike to the Geisspfadsee area in the Binn valley. My brother decided to join me. The climb is really heavy at the beginning but gets flatter in the middle section. The last 400 height meters are quite hard again but the view is amazing from up there. At the height of 2550m we were climbing and hopping from one block to the next each of them several meters in diameter. Heavy work when you’re not born at the top of the Kilimanjaro But it was fun.

Inside the Aare chasm

Although the hike on friday was really strenuous I couldn’t lie around on Saturday and started to a pass tour. My sister decided to accompany me. We drove above the Nufenenpass, the Gotthardpass and with a detour to the Göscheneralp lake over the Furkapass later that day. Although the distances in Switzerland are not that big one needs hours for several kilometers.
On my last day in Switzerland almost the whole family (my brother met his girl friend at the station in Freiburg/Breisgau on saturday) without my sister started for the Aare chasm. The micro climate in this amazing geological formation is great. Wet and cool. I could live there if there wouldn’t be so many tourists

my facebook account was hacked

Tobi — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:05:51 +0000

This was very surprising. I just wanted to look after my frontierville-account when I got kicked out of facebook. Well this happened once in a while so thought logging in again would solve this minor problem but not today. I immediately got to a page called roadblock where I had to put in a stupid captcha code and then had to answer a security question I set up once. But also I certain about the answer it didn’t work. I tried about 50 variations but none worked.
So it looks I never can log into my account until suddenly the right answer will appear in my brain. I tried to find a solution for at least one hour in the huge help section when I eventually found a possibility to contact facebook. Now I’m waiting for a response.
The interesting part is that I am not missing facebook at all. I have a lot of spare time on my hands and all the friends which are important to me I can access via several chats outside of facebook.
And for all superstitious people: the incident happened on a friday 13th

Favicons

Tobi — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:13:59 +0000

Today I made a very interesting discovery. Usually you use *.ico graphics for your small little favicons which are displayed in modern browsers right next to the url and in the bookmarks. Those are transformed *.gif files. And those don’t have the ability to set up a certain transparency per pixel. The only thing you can do is to say whether the pixel is completely transparent or not.
Especially for favicons with transparent and semi-transparent sections this looks kind of awkward in some cases because semi-transparent pixels become not transparent at all.
BUT if you use *.png as a favicon directly you can use the alpha-channel to have semi-transparent pixels and the shape of the icons become very smooth and the look improves massively when using *.pngs. I tested that in the actual firefox and opera and it works in both. I don’t care about the other browsers

modern scrat

Tobi — Fri, 14 May 2010 17:29:00 +0000

Two days ago I was hiking in the vicinity of Eberbach/Odenwald.

Größere Kartenansicht

On father’s day there were a lot of people underway. I met around 150 people in a 4 hours hike. And although it were that crowded I saw two modern scrats a.k.a. squirrels. Unfortunately those animals are very jumpy and run away pretty soon after they recognize you. I tried to walk as silent as possible to make some photos but nevertheless I had to shoot photos from about 20-30m distance and my zoom lens isn’t that good so the animals are pretty small on the images. But I hope you get the gist

squirrel no. 1 - pic 1

squirrel no. 1 - pic 2

squirrel no. 1 - pic 3

squirrel no. 1 - pic 4

squirrel no. 1 - pic 5

squirrel no. 2 - pic 1

squirrel no. 2 - pic 2

the best car…

Tobi — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:26:04 +0000

… from my perspective doesn’t exist. I wonder if it ever will. Well the key data are:

compact cat
cabriolet
4-wheel drive
integrated navigation system with a huge space for my own music… including an usb-interface to connect an external drive
hybrid drive with possibility to use ethanol E85 instead of gasoline
or an hydrogen-oxygen-fuel-cell-based electric engine

Too bad the automobile industry don’t think the way I do. There is rarely a compact 4WD car (except for Subaru Impreza) or even a compact 4WD cabrio (is there actually one available???). And what about a compact hybrid? Lexus announced the CT as a compact hybrid in 2011. H-O-fuel-cell based cars are available in 2012 earliest.
Until there is a good substitute I will use my good old paseo. A more sportive and less fuel consuming car you won’t get at the moment. The last time I fueled it up I calculated a 6.5l/100km fuel consumption. That’s not so bad for a 12 year old car

summer is coming back

Tobi — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:13:42 +0000

And sweating while jogging is becoming a nuisance again. No chance to avoid myself being seen while jogging in the dark.
But the good part is I see now where my turns are when I jog and am able to pace myself better.
In the first quarter of the year I lost a good chunk of my weight. But an annoying laryngitis set my condition massively back. I had to start almost from scratch again. But I am not drooping but working out a strategy to get the condition back. I am jogging every 36 hours (give or take a couple of hours), which means I day morning, next day evening followed by one day break. And then start again. So far I think it’s a nice rhythm.
At the moment I am jogging 31 minutes per session. Every seventh session I count up 1 minute. I am confident that my condition comes back soon and when the summer is here with it’s aweful heat, I am able to jog every morning

Irak-Krieg

Tobi — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:08:23 +0000

Ja, es gibt ihn immer noch. Auch wenn er nicht mehr ganz so aktuell in den Medien behandelt wird, mal von den Attentat-Nachrichten abgesehen. Und doch ist der Krieg für viele, ob gewollt oder nicht, Alltag geworden.
Und für eines muss man der deutschen Regierung dann doch mal dankbar sein. Nämlich dafür, dass sie NICHT mit in den Irak einmarschiert sind, wie das vielleicht gewisse Wischmops gewollt hätten. Man braucht sich nur den Beitrag “Der Krieg im Kopf (22:19)” anzusehen, um zu erkennen, dass Krieg immer die schlechteste aller Möglichkeiten ist.
Diese Reportage macht mich sehr traurig, dass junge Menschen, egal wie, verheizt werden. Ohne dass sie die Chance haben, für sich selbst zu entscheiden, ob sie diesen Wahnsinn mitmachen wollen.
Und wo zum Teufel verstecken sich eigentlich der Affe und seine Marionettenspieler???
Rest in peace Jacob Raymon Blaylock!