Tobi Waves

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 :-).

I have known it for a about a year. SciFi has not renewed its commitment to Farscape which essentially meant the end of the show. I am sure none of the folks at SciFi who made these decisions had watched the show. How else could it be that they killed the single most captivating, intelligent, humorous, sexy, thrilling, emotional and realistic sci-fi show ever conceived. Almost every episode I watched left me tingling all over, ideally wondering how they were able to come up with these great episodes over and over again.

It's almost a year since the cancellation, the Farscape fan-base still seems to be going strong at (www.savefarscape.co ...) plotting away on a strategy to get the show back on the air. Never loose hope.

Today I also went to the website of SciFi wondering what they were doing regarding Farscape. And indeed, they have this page "Farscape Memories" with articles from different actors remembering their time shooting the series. What hypocrisy first they pull the plug on the show and then they act all bleary eyed.

If I was rich, I mean real rich, I would just order a few more years of Farscape from the Creature Shop ... I guess I should not have gone into OpenSource, but rather have turned commercial at an early age, sucking in big bucks during the Internet Bubble then I could do more than keeping my fingers crossed for another network picking up the show again.

The other night I went to see "Wilbur wants to kill himself" (xrl.us ...) a movie about a guy, his brother, a women kid living in some Scottish town. The guy has a book shop, falls in love with the women and the brother tried to kill himself. The movie is by Lone Scherfig a Danish writer/director who was quite successful with the movie Italian for Beginners. I loved the story and the acting and above all the Scottish accent.

The strangest thing happened to me a few minutes into the film. When Alice (the women) entered the scene for the first time. She looks exactly like a friend of mine. I am quite sure it was not here, because she does not speak with a Scottish accent, and she is not an actress. Never the less I kept comparing her and Alice all through out the film. How would she act in a similar situation? And just to make it more complex, Alice is just a role, played by Shirley Henderson (xrl.us ...) but written by Sherfig, so how can it have any bearing on my friends behavior, or do looks influence how people behave, did Sherfig write the part of Alice for Shirley? Are Alice and my friend twins separated a birth?

Well it was a wired experience, but definitely a great movie. Go watch it!

I admit, I am a soap opera junkie. I just love watching them. My current favorite is The West Wing written by Aaron Sorkin (en2.wikipedia.org ...). Tonight I made it through the final episode of the first season. This time the outlook is great, as the show is till running in the US, now in its fifth season.

The West Wing is about people working in the White House for the President. It's also about the President himself. President Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen is a liberal Democrats dream. What a contrast to the current reality. An American friend told me recently that she finds it rather disturbing to watch the show, seeing what the reality could also be. Michael Moor even nominates Bartlet for President, along with Oprah in his latest book.

I am watching the West Wing on DVD, there was also the 15 minutes Making Of feature on one of the disk. There the actors talk about their parts and some bits of the sets are shown. Hearing the actors talk was odd. They were so different from the roles they play in the show. Not only did they talk differently, but also their body language was altered. I have never noticed something like this before in such a show. The characters in the West Wing make a very authentic impression on me, much more than the actors themselves actually. At least as far as the story line and the dialogs are concerned this has to be credited to Aaron Sorkin. Maybe Michael Moor should be nominating Aron Sorkin along with Oprah and Bartlet, someone has to write their lines after all.