Tobi Waves

I read in the paper today that the George W is going to ask Congress for 75 billion to finance his crusade against Saddam. Lets assume this will amount to about to maybe 100 billion in the end. This is about 500$ for each American citizen or 5,000$ for each person living in Iraq. I don't know how much the average income in Iraq is, but I guess with 5,000$ per person you should do well. Think even how many people in some other 3rd world country, one which has not even oil, could be sustained with this kind of money.

I saw Bowling for Columbine (www.amazon.com ...) last autumn, today heard Michael Moore's (www.michaelmoore.com ...) acceptance speech for the Oscar. He seems to be one of the few outspoken, witty Americans around these days, who are actively working for a better future for America in this world and not apart from it. A country currently governed by fear and through fear of an artificially enhanced enemy whom to fight will serve as a method to ensure W's reelection by people who might otherwise just realize what disservice they are doing themselves by choosing leaders who don't seem to have the understanding nor the intention to play by the rules for the greater good of the world.

In the radio news today, the presenter remarked, that the US was detaining POWs in Guantanamo under the label of 'Unlawful Combatants', refusing them any of the rights POWs should have, according to international law. He continued, that Iraq might call the US Soldiers exactly the same and would not even be all the out of line as the US is fighting this war with out UN mandate and is thus in blatant violation of the very fabric the chances for stability and prosperity of the world are based upon.

All Friday Regula have been packing our stuff into cardboard boxes. On Saturday morning at 8:30 10 of our friends arrived in Aarburg, ready to help us move all our belongings from the flat at the Feldstrasse to our new house at the Aarweg in Olten.

We had packed 90 boxes which had to be carried down 3 floors at the old place and up 4 floors in the new place. And this was only the beginning. The boxes alone filled the Van we had rented. A further three rides were necessary to transport all our furniture. I had hoped we would manage with two rides. I was so wrong. I promise, I will never buy anything new unless I give something old away ...

At 4pm all was done and everybody had had a gracious share of lifting and stair climbing. Thanks to the delicious lunch my mother had prepared for the whole crew we were tired, but at least well fed. (Thanks Mom!)

A big thanks to Alexa, Claudia, Doris, Gabi, Regula, Christoph, David, Fritz, Manfred, Manuel for their help. If you are ever going to move house, count me in.

I was searching google groups today when I lumbered onto this post from February 1998: (groups.google.com ...)

Amazing, these days many people blame W but six years ago, the Clinton administration has proposed a war on Iraq as well, only that they did listen: (www.cnn.com ...) It seems CNN has not edited their archives, even thought these days, US media don't report anti war rallies unless many hundred thousends attend. They rather bring an extendes feature on the few people marching for the war. It seems that independent and critical journalism is "out". Remember Watergate?

Today Akamai kicked Al Jazeera off their network. The Register has some thoughts on this (www.theregister.co.uk ...)

I got up at 4:15 am today. In order to get to Eindhoven on time, I had to take the 7 am flight from Zurich and thus the 5:20 train from Olten. Guess I am lucky to have no problem with getting up early.

In Schiphol I met Rudi and Alexios. Together we rode to Eindhoven and arrived at the TU/e just in time for the meeting. The other members of the program committee were there as well: Walter, Edwin, Brenda, Peter, Bastiaan, Xander, Jos and Fred. And there was also Marielle and Sabina from Iconic who will be doing all the actual organization work for the conference.

This is my first time on a PC. What I found the most difficult part, is to figure out which talks would be relevant 1.5 years from now, as the conference will be held at the end of September 2004.

At the meeting we did not really decide anything fixed, apart from the meaning of SANE: System Administation and Network Engineering Conference.

We tossed around a ton of names of potential invited speakers, had a short discussion about the deadlines, debated whether we should demand 400 word abstracts or extended abstracts like LISA. We also collected places where we wanted to distribute the Call for Papers.

I guess most things will get sorted on our PC mailing list, as we move on.

A week ago, a journalist of the swiss NZZ Newspaper had been directed to me by the universities press office. The guy was looking at writing a story on Open Source software and the press office people knew I had some projects in this area. It was the week of the Blaster worm. So after talking for about 40 minutes to the journalist on Wednesday he calls on Thursday to let me know that the story on Open Source had been shelfed, and he had to write a piece on Blaster. Oh, and by the way, would I know anything about the worm. I had been battling it for the last two days, so I said yes. With the effect that I was quoted in the article on Blaster.

The following week a guy from Swiss national television (SF DRS) called, they were doing a piece on Blaster too, with a 'confront MS angle'. They had read my name in the newspaper, I agreed to the interview. I organized coaching from our press office, as the TV people were from that hard hitting investigative show, and I didn't want to be caught in the middle. I was really careful not to make any too harsh comments. They have not yet broadcast it, so I don't know if I am going to look good or bad.

In the meantime Sobig has come back to haunt us, now in its F incarnation. The press office sent the local TV people straight to me when they inquired about a person to talk to regarding Sobig.

As you can see in the screenshot, I am the IT expert now. I picked that profession after the TV people told me that "Systemmanager" was way too complex and the press office people insisted, that "Security Specialist" was going to cause trouble with the folks from CS or central IT Security. Just in case you ever wondered how you become an expert.

I guess I just had my 15 minutes of fame :-).