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10/12/2013

Automated Passport Control

Chicago O'Hare was the first airport in the USA to offer automated passport control terminals beginning in July of 2013. On our way back home from vacation we had the pleasure of experiencing those personally.

APC-ORD.jpgI really liked that! There are about twenty terminals in use, for US citizens only. You scan your own passport, the machine takes a picture of you; then you answer those yes/no questions from the current customs form. If you didn't bring snails or pet cows, this can be done with one click of a button - the machine prints a receipt, and you're done.

These APC terminals cut the wait down drastically! Two full jumbo's had just landed, and we were all through immigration way before our luggage showed up.

09/17/2013

Back in the Saddle again

Honda2013.jpgEleven days ago my motorcycle suffered considerable damage due to no fault of my own. I was on my way to work, stopped at a traffic light, when some guy in a burgundy car rear-ended me.

The bike jumped forward a foot, then fell over onto the left side. As I crawled out from underneath, the driver got out of his car to see what he'd done. He asked if I was OK, said he was sorry, and helped me pick up the bike.

When I inspected the rear end and realized, that this was not going to be cheap, the man told me he didn't have insurance (!?). There was a traffic jam forming around us, so I agreed when he suggested that we pull over, onto this parking lot, out of danger, to negotiate how to proceed.

He got in his car - while I realized my clutch lever was bent from the fall, so I couldn't drive. It took me a minute to bend the lever straight to make it operable again. That was enough time for my opponent to drive away.

I don't fully remember how I rode to work after that.

After I had filed a police report, called my husband, and contacted my insurance company to start a claim, it dawned on me that I had made at least three mistakes in handling this incident:

  • I should have called 9-1-1 immediately
  • I should have taken a picture with my cellphone
  • I should have wrote down the car's license plate number

Surprisingly enough, despite all these mistakes, the whole thing went really well after all!

I was just a little sore for a few days; my insurance company handed me a check for the repairs (minus my deductible) within six days; and the repair shop had my bike fixed today. 

You wouldn't be able to tell that anything ever happened!

 

09/05/2013

Wahl-O-Mat

Elections are coming up in Germany and I am signed up to cast my vote, via an absentee ballot in the mail.

There are a lot of choices, which makes it hard to decide which party will most closely represent my interests.

That is where the Wahl-O-Mat comes in handy! You answer 38 questions about current political points of interest. Your answers will be compared to the answers collected from 28 different parties participating in the election. After you go through the entire questionnaire, you will see how closely the different parties match your own opinions - and then go from there.

According to my results, I should vote for Piraten (the Pirates) and Grüne (the Green Party).
Wahlomat.jpg

07/18/2013

Made in China - designed by Me

I like to buy local, support the community, avoid "Made in China". Products made in China symbolize everything that is, in my opinion, wrong with the economy. I associate "Made in China" with cheap, mass-produced junk.

I like to create, design, build things for myself. Building your own stuff is, in my opinion, the right way to go about it. I associate "do-it-yourself" with valuable, high-quality products.

But then I stumbled upon this webpage, by Converse, where you can fully custom configure a pair of sneakers; they will be manufactured in China, though. I could not resist the urge to design the wildest pair of chucks possible, and ordered them in my size.

They arrived today, they are way cool, and they got me thinking - maybe "Made in China" isn't so bad, if I designed it? It would still be better, if I could buy "Made in the USA" - designed by Me. 

Converse.jpg

19:22 Posted in 06, Having Fun | Permalink | Comments (0)

06/28/2013

to update or not to update....

When it comes to change, I find it exciting and frightening at the same time.

In the world of PC software, change is called "update" - and vendors want us to believe that an update is always a change for the better. I develop software for a living, so I can tell you this: most updates don't result in any improvement. Some updates even result in major setbacks.

I've been dealing with those setbacks with regards to one of my favorite pieces of software for a few months now. Ever since Skype decided to force automatic updates on users, beginning with version 6, I was unable to receive calls through my Skype-In phone number on my computer. I always made sure I was logged into Skype on that one computer only, logged out of Skype on all other devices - to no avail. Skype would simply redirect all calls to my cell phone, instead of "ringing" the PC.

Today I solved the problem, though. Sweet victory!

Here's what I did - just in case you have a similar problem:

  • uninstall Skype
  • download version 5.10.0.116 from http://www.oldapps.com/skype.php
  • install that and say "not now" when it tells you to update to the latest version
  • disable the SkypeUpdater Windows Service
  • find the SkypeSetup.exe in your profile's appdata/local/temp folder and delete it
  • replace that SkypeSetup.exe with an empty text file
  • deny all permissions for Everyone on the empty text file

Reboot and live happily ever after. 

 

 

19:03 Posted in Opinions | Permalink | Comments (1)