Category: Uncategorized

Should anyone ask, I’m not diabetic

I recently had tea with a diabetic. She whipped out a testing kit, pricked her finger, dropped some blood on an iPod sized device and then stabbed herself (though her sweater) in the stomach. All this happened within 30 seconds. We started talking about being diabetic and how she found out that she was one.

Apparently drinking lots of water is a sign. The body tries to compensate for the lack of insulin by using water as a catalyst. I get through about 3 litres a day she whipped out another needle and tested me. It was painless and I’m pleased to report that my blood sugar levels are spot on.

Should anyone ask, I’m not diabetic

I recently had tea with a diabetic. She whipped out a testing kit, pricked her finger, dropped some blood on an iPod sized device and then stabbed herself (though her sweater) in the stomach. All this happened within 30 seconds. We started talking about being diabetic and how she found out that she was one.

Apparently drinking lots of water is a sign. The body tries to compensate for the lack of insulin by using water as a catalyst. I get through about 3 litres a day she whipped out another needle and tested me. It was painless and I’m pleased to report that my blood sugar levels are spot on.

Should anyone ask, titles are very important in Germany

Signing up for a new bank account this morning and come across this:

Yes, you read that correctly. To you that’s “Dr. Dr.” Not just “Dr.” Or there’s the über respect provoking: “Prof. Dr”. I’m guessing that he has a nice collection of certificates too. Neatly filed away.

Can this go some way to answering the question about why people stay at university until they are 30?

Sigh.

Should anyone ask, titles are very important in Germany

Signing up for a new bank account this morning and come across this:

Yes, you read that correctly. To you that’s “Dr. Dr.” Not just “Dr.” Or there’s the über respect provoking: “Prof. Dr”. I’m guessing that he has a nice collection of certificates too. Neatly filed away.

Can this go some way to answering the question about why people stay at university until they are 30?

Sigh.

Should anyone ask, just get on your bike

From BBC News we have this article: Personal transport plans trialled

A nationwide brigade of personal transport advisers who call at the homes of drivers thinking of switching to greener forms of travel could help break Britain’s dependency on the car.

What a load of bollocks.  If the government actually built cycle routes people would use them.


But was Mr Powell aware of a major new cycle route through the city? He wasn’t, but now has a new cycle map to show him the way.

Will they also push his bike for him when he comes to a hill?Bollocks.

Should anyone ask, just get on your bike

From BBC News we have this article: Personal transport plans trialled

A nationwide brigade of personal transport advisers who call at the homes of drivers thinking of switching to greener forms of travel could help break Britain’s dependency on the car.

What a load of bollocks.  If the government actually built cycle routes people would use them.


But was Mr Powell aware of a major new cycle route through the city? He wasn’t, but now has a new cycle map to show him the way.

Will they also push his bike for him when he comes to a hill?Bollocks.

Should anyone ask, so endeth the days of packet loss.

I’ve had some rather strange packet loss occurring on the DSL uplink circuit.  As you can see from the graph below, about 50% of packets were being lost.
Since loosing bits is clearly not very nice, I logged a call with my ISP.  But then I decided to just check out my own network first.  Around the 25th I upgraded my switch and thought to myself that perhaps this was the cause of my the problems.  I noticed the link status light flashing off about every 4 seconds and then re-appearing.  The PPPOE device hanging off the network (this is the last hop on imagilan) was having trouble negotiating a stable speed.  Logging back into the switch I forced this to 10Mbps Full Duplex and voila!  Back online reliably (green=good):

This extended outage made me realise just how much I use DSL, for data, email and phone. Pleased to be back online.

Should anyone ask, so endeth the days of packet loss.

I’ve had some rather strange packet loss occurring on the DSL uplink circuit.  As you can see from the graph below, about 50% of packets were being lost.

Since loosing bits is clearly not very nice, I logged a call with my ISP.  But then I decided to just check out my own network first.  Around the 25th I upgraded my switch and thought to myself that perhaps this was the cause of my the problems.  I noticed the link status light flashing off about every 4 seconds and then re-appearing.  The PPPOE device hanging off the network (this is the last hop on imagilan) was having trouble negotiating a stable speed.  Logging back into the switch I forced this to 10Mbps Full Duplex and voila!  Back online reliably (green=good):

This extended outage made me realise just how much I use DSL, for data, email and phone. Pleased to be back online.