I had to change the blog theme, because while Vistered Little looks great, it had too many drawbacks in terms of style with the newer WordPress versions (like badly looking text next to pictures).
I’m now using the quite popular Atahualpa.
As guruz noted, there is a new version 762 of p300 out.
Unfortunately still without any improvement by me, but I’m actively working on those (distributed search).
p300 is a file-sharing tool for VPN and private networks.
Noteworthy features:
License: Public Domain
Painting the Mona Lisa with 1.001 paint balls coming from 1.001 barrels.
The MythBusters guys Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage did it at the NVISION08 show.
(Setup & Pretext: Part 1)
As you can see, I added the CodingClues.eu feed to the sidebar.
CodingClues.eu is my other blog, where I’m among a couple of geek friends writing about code.
It’s kinda like Coding Horror and Daily WTF, but more focused on code and applicability.
You can also copy the feed link from here, and add it to your RSS reader: CodingClues Entries RSS.
If you only want to read my entries, you can use this link: Sebastian at CodingClues.
I seem to go back and forth between CreativeCommons by-sa and by-nc-sa for this site and my pics every couple of months.
I just can’t agree with myself what is the best one:
So, from now on, I’ll use by-nc-sa again.
I saw this movie on Thursday.
I give it 4 / 10.
Good
It really feels like X-Files.
The atmosphere is there, Mulder and Scully are there, the weird stories are there.
If you’ve always waited for another film partly set in the morning snow, this is for you.
The slowly-typed labels have a comeback as well.
Bad
Unfortunately, although the story would be good for a new episode, it’s not blockbuster movie material.
Additionally, Mulder and Scully have way too much to discuss about their personal positions to the case at hand.
Usually, character development is a good thing, but it just swamps the thoughtful story.
And not in a good way.
The movie also has the feel of being unfinished, as if the final cut was… missing.
As if the makers decided halfway through that it wasn’t such a good idea to make it after all.
Conclusion
It’s a weak 4 / 10.
In my opinion, it’s not even as good as the first one.
It’s just… average.
Yet, it made me remember the good old X-Files series, and I’m planning to watch it again at some time.
We all know the famous scene from Frank Miller’s 300 where Leonidas casts the Persian messengers into the pit, shouting “This is Sparta!“.
It has been reproduced ad absurdum into all kinds of image macros and memes.
Now, we all know the movie is not actually close to historic truth.
People who don’t realize this are just idiots.
Or are they?
I recently read a history magazine about ancient Greece (GEO Epoche Griechenland), and guess what I found:
In 492 BC, the first Persian attack failed.
One year after, the Persian king sent diplomats to the Greek cities (”poleis“).
They are to take soil and water as a sign of submission of the Greek people.
Everybody submits.
What does Sparta do? They throw the messengers into a canyon.
But Athens throws them into a well for them to take soil and water by themselves.
So much historic accuracy in one often-copied image macro. Fantastic. 
I will go to Sardinia for 2,5 weeks in August.
I recently changed my bank accounts, and the new one gave me a free Visa card.
All is well for renting a car, right?
Not really.
The Visa cards you get for free from banks are debit cards, usually.
In Germany, they are known as “Direktkarte“.
This means they will charge the bank account immediately after you use the card, instead of giving you credit and sending a bill afterwards.
The problem with these cards is that car lessor will not take them, they only take “real” Visa credit cards.
Bad for me, I needed another card.
I chose the Amazon credit card, which is free in the first year.
Still, I wondered what was the difference.
After all, when I signed for the bank account, I signed that I would be liable for any money taken from the Visa card.
What better to do than ask Visa directly?
They replied within a couple of hours, here’s the full answer:
vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage bei Visa Europe.
Die folgenden Ausführungen erläutern Ihnen die Unterschiede zwischen Kredit und Debit Karten Transaktionen.
Grundsätzlich können Sie Ihre Debit Karte für alle Transaktionen genau wie eine Kreditkarte benutzen. Allerdings bevorzugen einige Händler - wie etwa Hotels oder Autovermietungen - ausschließlich Kreditkarten, um Hotelzimmer oder Mietwagen zu reservieren, bevor diese Leistungen in Anspruch genommen werden. Nichtsdestotrotz kann eine Debit oder Kreditkarte benutzt werden, um ein Hotel oder einen Mietwagen zu bezahlen.
Der dahinter liegende Grund ist folgender, wenn Sie einen Mietwagen buchen wird der zu erwartende Zahlbetrag vom Händler geschätzt und vorübergehend vom Kartenaussteller auf Ihrem Konto festgehalten, um sicherzustellen, dass genügend Mittel vorhanden sind, wenn die Transaktion beglichen wird.
Manchmal ist der vorgemerkte Betrag höher als der endgültige Zahlbetrag, da die Autovermietung einige Vermutungen über eventuelle Zusatzgebühren anstellen muss, die bei Benutzung des Mietwagens anfallen können.
Dies ist einfacher mit einer Kreditkarte zu bewerkstelligen, da ein Teil des zur Verfügung stehenden Kredits vorübergehend eingefroren werden kann, um die Kosten der Transaktion zu decken. Buchen Sie einen Mietwagen mit einer Debit Karte kann der vorgemerkte Betrag unter Umständen Ihr Konto überziehen, obwohl die eigentliche Transaktion noch gar nicht stattgefunden hat. Schlussendlich, beim Bezahlen der Rechnung, können Sie mit einer anderen Karte bezahlen, als mit derjenigen mit welcher Sie das Auto reserviert haben und diese Karte kann entweder eine Debit oder Kreditkarte sein.
Basically, although it is ensured that the seller/lessor will get his money, they only take credit cards, because they would only block “virtual” money on the credit card.
Charging my debit card would mean I would actually pay the money (and later get it back).
And all this time, I thought Visa stood for “easy payment”. 
At least they were able to give a good explanation.
It seems I have not yet blogged about GNOME Do.
GNOME Do is an application like Quicksilver (MacOS X) and GNOME Launch Box.
So, what is it? I always describe it as “command line for the desktop“.
You open Do with a simple keystroke. Then you just type away, and control your system. You can just type application names, and choose to open them. You can type file names, and move/copy/extract them. You can type any text and send it to Twitter or Google or IMDb. You can type an album name, choose a song and immediately add it to your MP3 player queue. And these are just a couple of examples from the vast possibilities in Do with all plugins enabled.
Saying more about it would be a waste of your time. If you are at all interested, you should definitely get it! The last week I have been so amazed by it that I plan to donate 5€ to the Do team for their efforts.
If you are on Ubuntu, don’t bother to install the slightly outdated 0.4 version in the repositories. GNOME Do has a release version repository at http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu. All the available plugins will be downloaded automatically when you activate them (great feature btw). Unfortunately, the Twitter plugin (which worked in 0.4) doesn’t work in 0.5 for a lot of people (Launchpad Bug 238902).
CodingClues.eu
