Engrish

Alright, the following stuff is probably only funny, if you know German and Germans a bit. At least I had to laugh a couple of times, so you might enjoy that as well 🙂

I received a PDF with some weird English translations of German idioms and I tried to extract the text information from that, so I stumbled upon a page explaining how to do OCR with free software on Linux. I got the best results using Tesseract with the German language set, but I had to refine the result (leaving some typos intact).

that’s me sausage = ist mir wurst
go where the pepper grows = geh hin wo der pfeffer wächst
I think my pig whizzles = ich glaub mein schwein pfeift
sorry, my english is under all pig = entschuldige, mein englisch ist unter aller sau
now can come what want…i ready = letzt kann kommen was will, ich bin fertig
I think I spider = ich glaub ich spinne
the devil will i do = den teufel werd ich tun
what too much is, is too much = was zu viel ist, ist zu viel
my lovely mister singing club = mein lieber herr gesangsverein
don’t walk me on the nerves = geh mir nicht auf die nerven
come on…jump over your shadow = komm schon…spring ueber deinen schatten
you walk me animally on the cookie = du gehts mir tierisch auf den keks
there my hairs stand up to the mountain = da stehen mir die haare zu berge
tell me nothing from the horse = erzaehl mir keinen vom pferd
don’t ask after sunshine = trag nicht nach sonnenschein
free like the motto: you me too = frei nach dem Motto, du mich auch
I have the nose full = ich hab die nase voll
lt’s not good cherry-eating with you = es ist nicht gut kirschen essen mit dir
it’s going up like smiths cat = es geht ab wie Schmidts katze
to thunderweather once more = zum Donnerwetter noch mal
not from bad parents = nicht von schlechten eltern
now it goes around the sausage = jetzt geht’s um die wurst
there you on the woodway = da bist du auf dem holzweg
good thing needs while = gut ding braucht weile
holla the woodfairy = holla die waldfee
we are sitting all in the same boot = wir sitzen alle im selben boot
don’t make you a head = mach dlr keinen kopf
there run me the water in the mouth together = da läuft rnlr das wasser im mund zusammen
I understand just train-station = ich versteh nur bahnhof
I hold it in head not out = ich halt’s im kopf nicht aus
shame you what = scham dich was
there we have the salad = da haben wir den salat
end good, everything good = ende gut, alles gut
zip you together = reiß dich zusammen
now butter by the fishes = jetzt mal butter bei die flsche
he made himself me nothing you nothing out of the dust — er machte sich mir nichts, dir nichts aus dem Staub
I belive you have the ass open — ich glaub du hast den Arsch auf!
you make me nothing for = du machst mir nichts vor
that makes me so fast nobody after = das macht mir so schnell keiner nach
I see black for you = ich seh schwarz fur dich
so a pig-weather = so ein Sauwetter
you are really the latest = du bist wirklich das letzte
your are so a fear-rabbit = du bist so ein angsthase
everybody dance after your nose = alle tanzen nach deiner nase
known home luck alone = trautes Heim, Glueck allein
I think I hear not right = Ich denk Ich hör nicht richtig
that have you your so thought = das hast du dir so gedacht
give not so on = gib nicht so an
heaven, ass and thread! = Himmel, Arsch und Zwirn’
of again see = auf wiedersehen
Human Meier = Mensch Meier
now we sit quite beautiful in the ink = jetzt sitzen wir ganz schoen in der Tinte
you have not more all cups in the board = du hast nicht mehr alle Tassen im Schrank
around heavens will = um Himmels willen
you are heavy in order = du bist schwer in Ordnung
l wish you what = ich wünsch dir was
she had a circleroundbreakdown = sie hatte einen kreislaufzusammenbruch
you are a blackdriver = du bist ein schwarzfahrer
I know me here out = ich kenn mich hier aus
l fell from all clouds = Ich fiel aus allen Wolken
that I not laugh = das ich nicht lache
no one can reach me the water = niemand kann mir das wasser relchen
that’s absolut afterfullpullable = das ist absolut nachvollziehbar
give good eight = gib gut acht
not the yellow of the egg = nicht das gelbe vom Ei
come good home = komm gut heim
evererything in the green area = alles im gruenen bererch
I die for Blackforrestcherrycake = Ich sterbe fuer Schwarzwalderkirschtorte
how too always = wie auch immer
I make you ready! = Ich mach dlch fertig!
I laugh me death = ich lach mich tot
it walks me icecold the back down = es lauft mir eiskalt den rücken runter
always with the silence = Immer mit der Ruhe
that’s one-wall-free = das Ist einwandfrei
I’m foxdevilswild = lch bin fuchsteufelswild
here goes the mail off = hier geht die post ab
me goes a light on = mir geht ein licht auf
it‘s highest railway = es ist hoechste Eisenbahn

Universal Parcel Tracking with BoxOh.com

Again, this is a quick reminder for myself and I want to share it with you.

There is an interesting webservice which tracks nearly all your (read: mine) parcels. It also offers an RSS feed and maps 🙂

The service is available under http://boxoh.com/

CCC Artwork

There are several images related to the CCC which I looked for for quite some time. Probably the oldest is the Pesthoernchen (also as SVG):

While you can get the image above from the official Logos, you can’t get the lower ones (yet): Sterntastatur from 18C3 (Hacking Is Not A Crime) also as SVG:

Sterntastatur - Logo of the 18C3

You might like the inverted version (also as SVG):

There is a modified version which aims to be more like the original RAF logo by mimicking a shotgun (also a SVG):

Sterntastatur2 - More like the RAF logo

Hacking Is Not A CrimeHacking Is Not A Crime

Bundestagswahl 2009 – Rette deine Freiheit!

Bald sind Bundestagswahlen und Blumentopf moechten dich mit einem Video zur Wahl motivieren:

Und zur Entscheidungsfindung empfehle ich Rette deine Freiheit, ein wirklich sehr gelungenes Video:

Aber Obacht: Die offensichtliche Empfehlung, die FDP zu waehlen, ist nicht vor dem Hintergrund einer schwarz-gelben Koalition nicht schlau, denn die FDP hat angekuendigt, nur gegen das Zensurgesetz vorzugehen, wenn sie nicht an der Regierung beteiligt sind. Aber auch sonst gaebe es mit der FDP nicht so viel zu lachen.

Eine andere Entscheidungshilfe kann die Uebersicht der Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) sein: Auf einer Wikiseite werden Positionen der Abgeordneten zu Freier Software gesammelt. Ein sehr interessantes Projekt.

Noch ein schoenes Video vom selben Macher ist Du bist Terrorist:

Wenn du den Film gut findest, dann vote fuer ihn im Bitfilmfestival Voting!

Wir haben die Kraft! Unser Land kann mehr!

PS: Sorry fuer das einbinden von YouTube, wenn du eine freie Alternative kennst, sag bescheid!

Making posters with PosteRazor

I had to create a huge poster out of an image. The normal way you do that is to somehow prepare many DIN A4 sheets, so you have to enlarge a given image, cut it into many pieces, probably add some padding and if you’re lucky, you get your PDFs you can print.

But how do you actually do this? I used to use psresize and friends because I just wasn’t aware of anything more useful. Of course, dealing with psresize, psnup etc wasn’t very comfortable and I rarely was successful. I remember that I’ve asked a friend of mine to do it for me several times in the past. He owned a Mac and it was rather comfortable with those authoring tools. I began using OpenOffice to create those posters, but it really is uncomfortable: You have to remember which cutout you’ve used in the previous page, then move the image within the page and hope that you match the previous page. Needless to say, that this takes a considerable amount of time.

I always wanted to have a tool which works like this: makeposter --format=DINA0 < input.png > poster.pdf It would scale the image, cut it, add padding for glueing and produce several pages in a single PDF.

I now was told about PosteRazor! An incredibly useful tool to do more or less the stuff I want. It is free software and pretty easy to use. It uses neither Gtk+ nor Qt. Instead, Fulltick is used to build the GUI. I have never heard of it, but it’s okay. The widgets are not as beautiful as Gtk’s and the filechooser is especially bad, but the rest seems to be fine. So it serves almost every need I have 🙂

Awesome, isn’t it? I mean not just that it’s really easy, and you have your own poster in five minutes including printing! They even have extremely good marketing! 🙂

GNOME Membership stats

In case you are interested in the GNOME foundation, here are some quick stats: During the second quarter of 2009, we have received 22 applications for a new GNOME Foundation membership, plus 24 applications for renewing the membership. Due to applications arrived before 2009/Q2, 24 applications for a new GNOME Foundation membership have been accepted. During the same period 13 members haven’t renewed their membership and we ended with 368 members.

We can also see the number of members over time on this (pretty huge) graph:

GNOME Foundation Members over time from 2001-10 until 2009-08

We actually managed to cut our membership base by 25% within the last two years. Nothing too much alarming though because we still have more members than we ever had on average. But still, the trend goes slightly downwards although we probably should catch steam for GNOME 3.0. I would not mind if the people come after they have seen GNOME 3.0 though 😉

Let’s get a closer look onto the new foundation members:

Count of new GNOME Foundation members from 2009-01 until 2009-08

Actually, nothing interesting, I think. 6 new members per month on average.

And the members who dropped out:

Count of GNOME Foundation members who dropped out between 2009-01 and 2009-08

And we can get that compiled into one graph as well:

New and Dropped Members 2009-01 until 2009-08

If you have ideas for interesting graphs, don’t hesitate to comment. Note that we don’t have much data though, because we don’t collect that much data anyway. And I really think this is a feature! Actually we could do even better because we currently have no policy when to delete data. So once you are a GNOME foundation member, you’ll be in the database forever. I guess we should fine a policy some time to not keep unused data.

In case you wonder what status your application is in, check the status page of the tickets we receive. New means, that nobody has done any action on it yet. Open is waiting for information from the contacts you’ve supplied and stalled is either no or a not satisfactory answer from your contacts yet.

Replace LaTeX Itemize Icon with Foot

If you use the LaTeX Beamer package for your presentation and you want to replace your itemize bullets with something more fancy, you might be interested in the following commands:

\setbeamertemplate{itemize item}{\includegraphics[height=1em]{bin/gnome-foot}}
\setbeamertemplate{itemize subitem}{\includegraphics[height=0.8em]{bin/gnome-foot}}

These will set your bullets to anything you want 🙂 A plain LaTeX solution, which won’t work with Beamer, is to use \labelitem:

\renewcommand{\labelitemi}{\includegraphics{foo}}
\renewcommand{\labelitemii}{\includegraphics{bar}}

Hope this helps 🙂

Datenspuren 2009 – Call for Participation

Die Datenspuren in Dresden gehen wider erwarten in eine neue Runde! Es ist schoen zu sehen, dass sich ein neues Organisationsteam im C3D2 Umfeld geformt hat und die gemuetliche Konferenz ans Laufen bringt. Obwohl ich selber noch nie da war, soll es eine ueberschaubare Konferenz sein, die sich weniger um Technik, als um praktische Datenvermeidung und Risiken der glaesernen Gesellschaft dreht. “Hands off – Privacy on” lautet das diesjaehrige Motto: Finger weg von den Grundrechten; der eigenen Privatsphäre bewusst werden.

Wenn du also am 03.10.2009 und 04.10.2009 nichts vor hast, bist du herzlich eingeladen nach Dresden in die Scheune zu kommen! Der Eintritt ist frei.

Auch darfst du ueber das Pentabarf deinen Vortrag oder Workshop einreichen, die Schwerpunkte sollen dieses Jahr sein:

Datenspuren im täglichen Leben
Missbrauch von Daten
Rechtslage
Sicherheit und Prävention
Digital Resistance
Hacking
Technikfolgenabschätzung
Informationsfreiheit
Aufklärung und Diskurs