I just took a test over on spiegel.de which was entitled, "Are You Smart Enough to Be German?".
While the overall "format" of the test on spiegel.de is pretty annoying - 33 questions, equal to roughly 66 pages and 66 clicks (if you never make a mistake) - something else struck me more.
Overall I question the usefulness of this test. Point taken, this is not the real deal but it's a sample of the kind of questions you have to answer on a test if you apply for citizenship in Germany. For example, there is a question which presents you with four choices (names of landmarks/districts) and you have to select the one located in Bavaria. I only guessed that one "correct" and had never heard of it before.
Another question of relevance - what are the colours in the flag/seal of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg? I guessed that one correct as well. Point is, why is that important in being German? Or my favorite question - the state capital of Hessen? Guessed that one correct as well, but why would anyone care?
Another thing I noticed was, that on 33 questions roughly a third or maybe half of all questions were about the West-Germany. Only a single question on East-Germany. Let's hope that the questions rotate, but how do they raise awareness for the former East-Germany? I don't want to be a nay-sayer nor am I one of those people who claims that the East was better than the West (not by far), but I still think people should be aware of the history - just like Hitler and the 3rd Reich. It's an integral part of German history and also part of our identity and who we are.
The score:
Gee thanks, spiegel.de. I am really glad, especially because I was born in Germany and have a German passport already! For full disclosure I will have to admit that I actually made two mistakes (31/33) - I misread a question and then clicked the wrong answer on another. But I sure hope I would still have no issues getting a German passport.You scored 33 out of a possible 33 points.
Well done! You would have no problem getting a German passport.
Regardless of my own score, I seriously doubt the effectiveness of such a test. Be it online, or in reality. After all, this is more in the trivia-category than anything else.
Paypal has this super awesome sandbox system setup which emulates their live inch by inch. It's a 100% copy, exactly like the real deal. And when I say exactly, I mean that it also emulates the weirdness and the issues, and the experience you have when you look for a setting in your account and you have been all over the stupid menus and you know - it's in there, but yet, you just can't find it.
Anyway!
This error ("The link you have used to enter the PayPal system is invalid. Please review the link and try again.") took me a while to figure out. Turns out, I had a typo'd "seller" email address in my HTML form (the field is called "business") and this typo caused this error.
Couldn't find anyone online who ran into this before, so I thought I'd post it.
Totally sweet. Wish I would have thought of this.
Anyway, sorry for the total lack of updates. I've been in the U.S. (mostly NYC) since late June and had a blast so far. Weather is pretty fucking awesome, and it's exciting.Not that I don't miss Berlin, but I think the two of us needed some distance. Woo.
Rock on!
]]>I am totally for sunsets. California has nice ones too. Can never resist to snap that when I walk by one.
]]>I'm gonna attend NYPHP next Thuesday (Tuesday, June 24th at 6:30pm sharp) and look forward to meeting some folks from the NY PHP scene - is anyone else in the area and coming?
Their website tells me that Bruce Momjian (PostgreSQL core developer and EnterpriseDB Senior Database Architect ) will give a talk on PostgreSQL. Good enough to convince me to go, even though there will be the Facebook Developer Garage the very same day (good planning :P).
I might add that the meeting is at IBM's offices in Midtown, and that you need to RSVP at least by Monday 3:00 PM.
Found this in Heiko's photostream. Pretty vivid, very alive.
If I remember correctly, he called it the most intense streetart experience he ever had. Probably not only this picture, but also his other shots from that day! ]]>This is from last summer (2007). The exhibition was called "PLANET PROCESS" and featured a bunch of streetartists from around the world (see tags on Flickr).
Now I guess I need to work on my stitching and clone stamping (see sky), but since I just started recently, I think I am getting there. Enjoy. More stitching on Flickr. ]]>Last night a friend noticed that using his domain there were a couple spamhosts floating around on the Internet promoting the usual (porn, cialis and the like). We host(ed) his DNS through everydns.net's free service (which aside from one downtime and this incident has been outstanding over maybe six or eight years). It's a free service, powered by donations.
Here is the run-down
The DNS (Domain Name System) is used to map fancy hostnames to IP addresses, so for example whenever you go to www.google.com, the name servers listed on google.com make sure that you are send to the correct computer so you can do your search.
My client's domain: example.org
The spam host: freejoin.example.org
How did it happen?
Everydns.net treats all domains equal, so when we put ns1 through ns4.everydns.net on the domain as authoritative nameservers, the abuser added freejoin.example.org to his account on everydns.net and added a dozen of hosts "beneath" it to advertise their services.
I am surprised that no one had noticed anything like that before.
Solution
In this case we moved the DNS to another server and that fixed the situation for us.
David Ulevitch, the owner/founder of everydns.net, was notified (2008/05/04) prior to writing this blog post and he let me know that the bug is being fixed.
So, I've spent some time this morning reading the comments regarding China over at Hauptstadtblog.de (available in Germany only) and the general tone of all pro-China people commenting on there is:
So, woah. I think I finally got it. We are not supposed to say anything, basic human rights are not part of your culture and if we still interfere, you will fuck us up economically in the long run?
All cultural differences aside, I really respect most of everything there is in the world. Whatever you do, do it, just don't harm anyone else.
Then again, China wants to do trade with the world and the world is supposed to not pay attention to interior affairs? You want the Olympic Games and expect everyone to just pretend that they don't see? Point taken it happens more than often. Yeah, we buy oil from Saudi Arabia even though they do all kinds of cruel things to people. It's a double-standard. But when the world finally pays attention how can anyone in their sane mind ask them to turn around?
I also fail to see how grown-up Chinese people, despite all the pride they have for their country, do not see this and instead chose to believe propaganda when it's so obvious that your government has more of a dictatorship than anything else. But I guess that is part of their culture and we are not supposed to interfere.
Though Germany is not a 100% perfect, of course I am still proud to be German. And that's because you can express your opinion on anything you want. People are allowed to be left, right, center, liberal, conservative, whatever. Even those Nazis are allowed to express their opinion (as long as they do not deny the Holocaust) - I mean, look at it, even they are allowed to be part of this democracy. Democracy's strongest asset, is also its biggest weakness.
In China you go to a labour camp for writing a critical blog.
