BetterSearch screenshot

This was made possible by displaying preview thumbnails from various sources, such as Amazon’s Alexa service and several others. These thumbnails had to be bought from them, which was financed by money I made as an Amazon affiliate. When BetterSearch would find an Amazon product in the list of search results, it would not display the Amazon.com thumbnail but the actual product image, along with the price, average rating and related information. When a user would click through, and buy stuff from them, I (as their affiliate) would get a few cents.¹

This worked out well. It paid for server, bandwidth and thumbnails, and yes, I’ve made some extra money from it. Not much, but a bit.

Then, around end of 2008, Amazon changed the terms of their affiliate program — all of a sudden, what BetterSearch (and several other addons for different browsers) were doing wasn’t allowed anymore. No more tagging of so-called “organic search results”. Oh noes! The Amazon partner program-related code had to go.

This put me in a somewhat tough spot. On the one hand, I liked my addon, and I know a lot of people were using it on a daily basis. On the other hand, it was just a side project, and the only source of income to counter the costs had suddenly dried up — and to be honest, as much as I like BetterSearch, it’s nothing I was willing or able to invest lots of money in just for the fun of it.

But luckily, the company of a former co-worker of mine was looking for something like BetterSearch. They were interested in buying the addon, and we came to an agreement.

What does that mean?

It means BetterSearch, the Firefox addon, is now owned by Abakus Internet Marketing. They will continue to develop it, they will run its servers, pay for the bandwidth and the thumbnails — in a nutshell, everything BetterSearch is theirs now.

For the end user, not much will change — apart from a vastly expanded number of available thumbnails, that is. Firefox will update the addon whenever there’s a new version, the way it was before. No need to manually install or adjust anything.

What’s not part of the deal

No user-related data was passed along. First and foremost, BetterSearch didn’t collect any user data. But of course there’s always the case of the thumbnail server logfiles. Everytime a thumbnail is requested, it’s noted in a server logfile, along with the user’s IP address. (That’s the modus operandi for pretty much every server everywhere on the internet. Ask your local geek about the details.) Since I don’t care about this stuff, these logfiles were deleted on a daily basis anyone looking at them.

Either way, these server log files were not part of the deal.

The future

I think the addon’s future is a bit brighter now as it was a few months ago. Now there’s someone with sufficient resources to maintain and further develop BetterSearch. To me, that’s a good thing. :)

But what exactly did I have in mind? This is where it gets a bit complicated. I was looking for a site that would automatically keep track of my characters for me, make daily snapshots, let me upload images and notes… Give me a timeline of their progress… In short, something that would allow me to document the “life” of my toons. Maybe something that would give me a bit more, with “more” still being a very diffuse idea.

Anyways, I always felt this was strange there was no such site, as I believe there’s an audience for that. So many people do invest so many hours, so much energy and money into the game, I can’t possibly be the only one wanting.

I ended up firing up TextMate and starting to code, and only a short while °cough° later, I had something I deemed good enough to release as a beta.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you CharPool.

The site does exactly what I’ve described a few paragraphs ago, but it also throws in (in my opinion) funky Twitter support, whereas you can tweet in the name of your characters, and these tweets will show up on the chars timeline, together with your achievements and screenshots etc. It also has feeds.

There’s also a page which shows you the WoW-related tweets of your guild mates and also of the people you are following on CharPool. The guild support is still rather rudimentary, and at the moment is mostly just a hint at things to come. Again, it’s Twitter-based, because I’ve read somewhere on AOL that it is what the “cool cats” are “digging” right now.¹

So, I am having plans for CharPool. Big plans. But it’s still in its infancy, there’re a few rough edges, and I’ll need testers to take a look, poke around, and give me feedback. Preferrably WoW players, because, you see, without active characters the site is rather pointless. :)

I’ve opened up 250 beta slots which are given away on a “first come, first serve” basis. I’d appreciate it if you could take a look if WoW is your cup o’ tea. If not, maybe you know someone who is a player? Then you could pass him a note.

Thank you very much in advance.

Lo and behold, the stability improved tremendously — my Cybook hasn’t crashed once since I’ve switched.

So, yes, the crashes/lockups are definitely font issues. The more you know.

The idea of electronic reading appeals to me. I’ve tried my luck several times over the last few years, on different devices, with varying success. (Anyone remember Palm? Haha, yeah… me neither.)

First of all, I like a good novel. Being able to carry a number of them around with me, wherever I go, is a good thing. Back then I was spending almost two hours each day in public transit, and imagine that: reading beats staring at subway tunnel walls the whole time.

My second argument is a bit more elaborate. You see, I’ve read a lot of books in my life, most of them just once. Not everything written by man is a gem begging to be re-read time and time again. And while this is okay –not everyone can be Shakespeare, and most of these books I’ve enjoyed at least a bit, after all– it raises the question of what to do with them after reading. There are so many “one-off” books in my basement, it’s not really funny anymore. Some of them I gave away, some I’ve sold, some I’ve fed to a recycling bin. But the others are sitting there, silently, and everytime I look at them I wonder a) what to do with them and b) how much wood was used up to make them. (Yes, I’ve actually had a point to make here.) Thus, I’d feel less bad about getting said one-time-read-through novels in electronic form.

Anyways: After a few months with Stanza I’ve decided electronic reading works well enough for me to warrant a dedicated device for home use — a real ebook reader. After some shopping around, comparing prices and reading up on different offerings I went with the Bookeen Cybook gen3.

After a few weeks of using it a lot I now feel comfortable enough to share my findings. I know at least a few people are curious about it — hi Mookie & Bernhard. ;)

Quick Facts

• 6″ e-ink screen
• 600×800 pixels, 166 dpi
• B&W, 4 grayscale
• No backlight, naturally
• Multi format: reads Mobipocket (DRM and non-DRM), HTML, PDF, TXT, PalmDoc, image formats etc.¹ Both EPUB and better PDF support are promised for the upcoming firmware update. (Hopefully this’ll include reflowing text in PDFs.)
• Has an SD slot — in case the 512MB onboard storage isn’t enough.

The Good

• Rather affordable: I’ve ordered mine in the UK, and paid €225 incl. shipping to Germany. The box contained the Cybook, a short pamphlet, and an USB cable. Not more, not less.
• It’s a light device: Only ~170g, battery included.
• The screen is great, the time it takes to turn a page is surprisingly short and not noticeable anymore after reading a few pages.
• There’s no proprietary software to be installed. Connect it to your Mac/PC, and it’ll show up as mass USB storage device in your Finder/Explorer. This is also how you put new content on the device. I like that.
• Truetype support: Don’t like the built-in fonts? Just copy TTF files to the device and use them instead. I really like that.
• Rather simple and logic menu layout. The menus mostly make sense.
• Handy display controls: Font family, font size, layout (justification etc.).
• Impromptu bookmarks: Turning off the device or going back to the “library” (i.e. the main list of stored texts) during reading will make a note of your progress. Going back to the text later on will bring back to you where you’ve stopped reading.

The Bad

• Doesn’t support EPUB yet, but apparently this will be “fixed” within the month.
• The PDF support is… well, let’s just say that yes, it displays most PDF files. But it either tries to cram one document page into the space of the 6″ screen or flips the display 90° and shows either the upper or lower half of the document page. It works, but it ain’t fun, yo.
• No page numbers: There is an (optional) horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen to display how far you’ve progressed through the book. It’s a neat idea, and a good alternative to page numbers. Well, in theory. It’s an idea that wasn’t fully thought through, as you can also jump to any page using its page number through the menu. Which is somewhat useless, as the current page number isn’t indicated number anywhere. It’s just not displayed. I know that on a device that supports different font families and sizes, calculating page numbers can be a drag, but come on: the navigation currently in place is only 4 parts working — and 1 part barely sufficient.
• Stability:
  • It locks up every now and then, which puts me in the strange situation that I had to reboot my book. (There’s a tiny reset button on the back of the device.)
  • Since the reading progress is only stored during shutdown or upon return to the library but naturally not during a lockup, the device will not remember where I was when the crash happened. So after a reset the last automatically saved bookmark will be used — my progress made between opening the text and the lockup will be lost. This is unfortunate, as there is no “forward ten pages” menu option, so I usually end up flipping through dozens of pages after a crash, looking for the right page.
  • Update: The crashes are apparently directly related to the font used — using DejaVu Serif Condensed instead of Liberation Serif helped the stability quite a bit. YMMV.
• Not all books come with a TOC, and it’d be nice if the Cybook would autogenerate one. Alas, it doesn’t.
• I’m having problems opening the PDFs from the Suvudu Free Library, which makes me a sad panda. I hope this will change with the aforementioned firmware update.
• I don’t like the available three library views all that much. They’re a wee bit uninspired.

The Useless

• Plays MP3.
• On the left side of the device there are four buttons. Only three of them have a function.

DIY Improvements

• I wanted a cover to protect the screen, but didn’t want to spend money on them “official” leather covers. So I’ve …molested a Moleskine (ahem²). Which actually worked out pretty nicely after all. Because I am a man of many talents! Oh yeah.
• Liberation Serif. ’nuff said.
• Impress the ladies: MobiPerl and hpricot make for a good team.

The Verdict

It’s no Kindle 2. It’s a neat device without frills. It’s not perfect. But it’s affordable and works, and I don’t regret the purchase.

I see no point in running Planet Yahoo! anymore, for reasons probably known — i.e. a few months ago Yahoo!’s decided my services as an engineer (and those of my co-workers) were no longer required.

Sorry if you were one of the few people finding some value in the aggregation of all these Yahoo! blogs into one big feed.

I’ve spent a couple of hours today pulling my hair out while trying to get one of my background job scripts to work with god, the “easy to configure, easy to extend monitoring framework written in Ruby”.

Well, it took a while to make it work, tho. Yes, god is cool and simple and gets the job done. But there are some things that cost me hours and which I found out only by reading the source code.

So, I just want to quickly jot down some gotchas before I forget them again, running the risk of falling into the same traps again in the future.

1. My script used the constant LOG to keep my Logger instance. Logging worked fine when I ran the script by itself, yet when god took over, it didn’t anymore. Actually, the script died rather quickly. As there was no logging at all going on, and all STDOUT output was suppressed, I came rather close to losing it. Turns out god itself is declaring a LOG constant of its own, which was done before my script had the chance, so when it attempted to initialize it, it would actually try to re-declare an existing constant, and we all know how well that works. ;)

2. Once that was done, my script was logging just fine, but it didn’t produce any output whatsoever. Raah! Teeth were gnashed… there was definitely teeth gnashing going on. Even telling “my” Logger (the one inside my script) to write to a file didn’t produce anything. That was a fun hour, really. The reason for this behaviour: god is closing all open file descriptors when it sets up monitoring a script. Which included my script. Awesome! On the upside, it meant I could get rid of the part of my code dealing with different logger behaviours. Meaning less LOC! It doesn’t get any more agile than that, folks.

3. In case you actually want to capture anything your original script is sending to STDOUT, there’s the not-really-documented God::Watch#log. Set it inside your God.watch block to specify a log file. (See example below.)

4. If you need to set ENV variables, God::Watch#env is your friend. Accepts a hash with arbitrary key/value pairs. For example, I declare a few God.watch blocks, one for each value of an array (think “worker 1 to 5″), and I use God::Watch#env to pass the current value to the worker script. Works well.

5. When you do a sudo god stop <watch>, make sure to give it a few moments before running sudo god start <watch> again, or you might end up with orphaned unmonitored scripts running rampant in the background.

6. Running sudo god log without any further arguments will tell you that “You must specify a Task or Group name”. That’s actually a lie, as it only accepts task names. (A group is a number of related tasks. A task is a single monitoring watch.)

So, yeah.

Don’t get me wrong, please: It might not look like it, but once I had figured it all out, I’ve decided I actually like god. I like the feature set, it’s really easy to set up, and it works. I’m happy it exists.

Seven things weird and/or unknown about me:

1. When I was 8 years old, I’ve developed an allergy to cats, more or less out of the blue. Which sucked, since I had two female cats at that time, Tina and Nena. (It was the 80s, gimme a break.) We had to give them away, and my room had to be renovated, as I became nearly asthmatic due to the omnipresent cat hair. Interestingly, becoming allergic to something you had no problems with before isn’t all that uncommon. Still, not a nice experience.
2. I’m one quarter Polish. My granny was from Poland.
3. I have a drivers license for small tanks. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in the driving school while I was in the Army (90’s), and went with it. :) So, I own a license for “Klasse F (Voll- und Halbkettenfahrzeuge) — F2 (bis 30t)” (up to 30 metric tons). I do not, however, own an actual tank, and quite frankly, I am not even sure whether I am allowed to steer a track-laying vehicle (like a tank) outside of the military now (regulations have changed quite a bit since then).
4. I had a pet rat when I was 14. My parents hated it. :)
5. The first computing device that was truly my own was an Atari 800XL. Awww yeah, bitches!
6. I own not five, but six pairs of original Bavarian Lederhosen in various lengths and styles. About 12 years ago, when I moved to Munich, I valiantly declared that I would never ever dress in Bavarian clothing as it just felt wrong. This, of course, led to me ending up with two pairs at my next birthday, as two circles of friends both had the same idea. Things developed from there. I came to like them, even though I very rarely wear them.
7. I tend to lie when asked by others to talk about things they might not know about me. A lot, actually.

Bonus!

1. I once met Justin Timberlake. True story.

I’d like to thank the Academy

I’d like to tag everyone who feels like participating in this crazy new meme. For example Mike or Hendrik, who would both really surprise me would they take this thing and run with it. I doubt it, but you’ll never know. So… It’s a FFA. Find the rules over at Mookie’s place.

What a downer… or is it?

After some deliberation and discussions with Dana, I’ve decided to concentrate on the bright side: I have a few ideas for products (read: websites), and now I finally have the time to work on them. I’ve always contemplated building them in my spare time while still being employed, but apart from a few small experiments (which were fun to write but are hardly my personal “next big thing”) that concept didn’t work out so well.

Thus, I’ve decided to concentrate on my own stuff in 2009 — full frontal self-employment. That’s right, I’m an entrepreneur now.¹

I plan on spending about half a year to bring my ideas to life, and then taking on freelance jobs later on to bolster the income these site will (hopefully) generate. My ideas are related to gaming, both because it’s something I love and because I am definitely seeing a market there. I think my concept is sound, and I know I can build this …thing. It won’t be easy, but I have no problems working for my money. ;)

I don’t know whether it will work out or not, but I want, nay, need to try. The time certainly is as right as it gets. Actually, one could argue that I’ve waited a bit too long with my idea, since a “contender” appeared on the scene a short time ago.² But I don’t see this as a showstopper, quite the contrary — it’s good to have competition as it keeps you on your toes. :)

So, 2009: it’s going to be my year. It’s a grand experiment, and while working alone I won’t be alone, as my wonderful wife and my friends are supporting me. Still, I don’t know yet whether I will succeed or if this kind of thing will be working for me. Quite honestly, this makes me a wee bit nervous.

Nonetheless, full steam ahead!

Yes I can.

Verdict

• A really good year.

Posts

I didn’t write as much as I had planned on doing, but nonetheless, here are a few of my “better” posts (subjective opinion, YMMV).

• Revelation, Twitter Edition
• Revelation, Garden Store Edition
• Der Vogel (in German)
• Going Paleolithic
• A German’s View: US Elections 2008
• Child’s Play 2008: Germany
• The Amazing Xmas Gift Ideas Machine

Have a good 2009.

That said, these are gruesome times for publishing, and a lot of folks are not as well-positioned as I am. Imprints have vaporized, layoffs have begun, and it’s better-than-even odds that a number of authors and books are going to get shaved off of publishing lists. 2009 is also likely to be a singularly lousy time to be an aspiring debut author, as publishing houses consolidate their lists and focus their resources on established avenues (i.e., spend their money on people who are already bestsellers) rather than seeking out new folks. Basically, life’s gonna suck in publishing for the next year or possibly two.

I love my ebook reader (Stanza on the iPod as you can’t get the Kindle here in Germany yet), and I’d like to buy more ebooks. It’s a distribution channel which (I think) would be a pretty good way for the publishers to make additional money …if many of these files wouldn’t cost me as much or more than the dead-tree versions.

I mean, really: I like good novels as much as the next guy, and I am definitely willing to spend money on them. Also, I don’t like hardcovers for the price tags (yes, I think $25 is a lot of money). One would think that a digital version would cost substantially less than the hardcover, but it’s not always the case. Case in point: “Zoe’s Tale” by John Scalzi, currently on sale for $25 (ebook, FictionWise) and $17 (hardcover, Amazon).

I have no problems with paying $7 or $8 for an ebook, but anything over $10 is highway robbery.

Do not misunderstand me: yes, I am tempted to buy it, but I will fight the urge, because quite frankly, John’s a great writer, and I enjoy his novels very, very much. Also, I don’t think he’s the one dictating the price — so who’s responsible for these insane prices which seriously keep me from spending money?

(BTW: Yes, you might say “get the paperback”, but this is not my point. My point is: I want the digital edition, because it’s the version I prefer for various reasons.)

Anyways, I believe right now the publishing industry is facing the same problems as the music industry — they’re shooting themselves in the foot because they are either ignoring the possibilities of using a great distribution channel or actively sabotaging it by asking for completely disproportionate amounts of money.

Angry Carlo is angry.

(This is a slightly longer repost of a comment I’ve left on Whatever. After posting I wanted to make some clarifications, but couldn’t edit the comment, so here we go.)

Meine Motivation, eine neue “Herausforderung” zu finden, stieg dementsprechend sprunghaft — denn ab 31.12.2008 bin ich somit ohne Arbeit (Stand: heute).

Um ehrlich zu sein, ich weiß noch nicht genau, was ich machen möchte. Will ich als Freelancer arbeiten? Suche ich mir einen (interessanten) neuen Job? Mache ich eine eigene Firma auf? Im Moment bin ich etwas unschlüssig, alle drei Optionen klingen irgendwie verlockend.

Vielleicht muss ich nur überzeugt werden. Also, sollte eine coole Firma in München zufällig nach einem versatilen Allrounder mit einem Faible für Scripting/Hacking (Ruby, Python, Javascript, Perl, PHP, LUA…) und alles Neue suchen, der sich mit geschlossenen Augen in diesem Internetz auskennt: ich würde mich sehr über eine Mail, einen Tweet oder einen Anruf (089 / 317 12 74) freuen. Oder auch über einen Besuch auf meinem LinkedIn- oder Xing-Profil. :) Danke!

Und sollten irgendjemand nach einem wirklich sehr, sehr guten Web Dev suchen: mein Freund und Kollege Mike West ist zur Zeit ebenfalls auf der Suche.

Die Sendung vom Samstag gibts auch als Podcast, als MP3-Direktdownload und zum Gleich-auf-der-Seite-Anhören. Das Interview geht bei ca. 11:05 min los. Der Rest der Sendung ist natürlich auch cool; generell ist Trackback als Podcast ohnehin wunderbar geeignet, um Bus- und Bahnfahrten mit Kurzweil zu überstehen. :)

Vielen, vielen Dank nochmals an Marcus für die Plattform! Jetzt hoffe ich mal, dass mehr als nur wir zwei an der Child’s Play-in-Deutschland-Idee interessiert sind. Daumen drücken!

Ein alter Bekannter von mir, Marcus, hat mich kurz nach der Veröffentlichung angepingt und gefragt, ob ich Interesse an einem kurzen Interview für seine Radio-Sendung Trackback hätte. Natürlich hatte ich — wenn alles klappt, wirds was morgen zwischen ab 18:00 und 20:00 Uhr.

Also, Lauscher aufstellen. :)

Ansonsten würde ich mich darüber freuen, wenn Ihr für die Idee ein wenig die Werbetrommel rühren könntet. Verbreitet den Link zur Child’s Play-Kategorie auf carlo.log, oder lest nach, was Ihr sonst noch machen könnt (in diesem Post, unter “Child’s Play 2009″).

Update: Marcus lässt ausrichten, dass Fritz auch einen Livestream hat. Hurra!

Child’s Play 2008 ist gestartet. Gamer in vielen Ländern geben Geld oder kaufen Spielzeuge, Games und andere Geschenke für Kinderkrankenhäuser und -stationen und ihre kleinen Patienten; Partner-Kliniken in den US, Großbritannien, Kanada, Neuseeland, Australien und Ägypten freuen sich über vielen Spenden.

Die Frage

Aber warum nicht hier in Deutschland? Die Frage kam mir während des Sommer immer wieder in den Kopf. Wieso gibt es keine deutschen Kliniken, die mit Child’s Play zusammenarbeiten? Im Juli fragte ich dann bei Kristin Lindsay, der Projektmanagerin im Hause Penny Arcade, nach und bot präventiv meine Dienste als “freiwilliger Verbindungsoffizier” an.

Die Antwort kam nach ein paar Tagen: “Der Grund ist: Wir sprechen kein Deutsch, was die Kontaktaufnahme ziemlich erschwert. Dein Angebot nehmen wir gern an!”

Die Aufgabe

Im Prinzip geht es nur darum, den initialen Kontakt zwischen Child’s Play und interessierten Kliniken herzustellen. CP kennt keine deutschen Einrichtungen. Woher auch? Sie brauchen Gamer vor Ort, i.e. uns, wie in allen anderen Ländern auch. Die Verantwortlichen in den Krankenhäusern haben Fragen, und es schafft mehr Vertrauen, wenn diese von lokalen Ansprechpartnern in Landessprache beantwortet werden.

Rechtlich gesehen sind die Freiwilligen außen vor. Wenn sich eine Einrichtung entschließt, ein sog. Partnerhospital zu werden, wird eine rechtliche Vereinbarung direkt zwischen ihr und der Charity in den USA geschlossen. Child’s Play arbeitet dabei aber nur mit sog. non-profit organizations zusammen: z.B. mit öffentlichen Kliniken oder auch entsprechenden Stiftungen.

Wir, die Freiwilligen, kommen erst wieder ins Spiel, wenn das Krankenhaus evtl. Hilfe beim Erstellen seines Wunschzettels benötigt. Der Kauf und die Lieferung erfolgt komplett über Amazon.

Die Geschichte

Eine gute Woche später, Anfang August, war ich wegen einer Untersuchung als potentieller Knochenmarkspender im Klinikum München-Neuperlach. Ich fragte mich zum Sozialdienst durch, wo ich erfuhr, dass Neuperlach keine Kinderstation hat. Knüller! Dafür bekam ich aber vom freundlichen Chef des Dienstes Namen und Telefonnummern von Ansprechpartnern in den Kliniken in München-Harlaching und München-Schwabing. Sehr gut!

Nun, ich hatte nicht wirklich erwartet, dass sich die Leute darum reissen, mich anzuhören. Trotzdem begann ich frohen Mutes meinen Telefondienst. Meine zwei Kontakte waren freundlich und hilfreich, aber nicht die Personen, die Charities betreuen. Ich bekam immer neue Namen von anderen Klinik-Mitarbeitern, die sich “um derlei Anfragen” kümmern, und nach einigen Umwegen hatte ich auch tatsächlich Menschen am Apparat, die mir zumindest Auskünfte und richtige Namen geben konnten. Nur half das nicht wirklich weiter: “Der Verantwortliche heisst [XYZ], aber er/sie ist krank/im Urlaub/auf Reisen”.

Die nächsten zwei Monate verbrachte ich dann viel, viel Zeit am Telefon. Ich sprach mit netten und ehrlich interessiert wirkenden Klinikmitarbeitern, die um Infomaterial baten und Fragen hatten. Bei einigen dieser Fragen musste ich bei Kristin Lindsay nachfragen, weil ich die Antworten selbst nicht kannte. Aber hey, leben und lernen! :) Kristin half mir weiter, und ich gab die Informationen auf Deutsch an meine Kontakte in den Einrichtungen. Ich rief im Wochenrhythmus an, fragte nach Neuigkeiten und Entscheidungen. Aber Bürokratie braucht seine Zeit. Ich hakte nach… hakte nach… hakte nach.

Kurzgesagt, ich tat das, wofür ich als Freiwilliger “angeheuert” hatte.

Ende erster Akt

Ende Oktober kam dann aber leider das Aus (für dieses Jahr). Die Städtischen Kliniken München ließen mich in einer kurzen Mail wissen, dass sie Child’s Play interessant fänden, ich aber bitte Verständnis dafür haben sollte, dass man nicht Partnerhospital werden möchte. Schade.

Mir blieb nichts weiter übrig, als mich für die Info zu bedanken, und darauf hinzuweisen, dass 2008 sicherlich nicht das letzte CP-Jahr gewesen sein wird.

Tja, und das ist der Grund, warum es zumindest dieses Jahr keine Child’s Play-Aktionen in Deutschland gibt.

Die Nachbesprechung

Ich finde es bedauerlich, klar. Und im Nachhinein denke ich mir, dass ich eventuell mehr als nur zwei Kliniken hätte anschreiben müssen. Die Chancen auf einen Erfolg wären klar größer gewesen. Aber ich hatte so etwas noch nie gemacht, und hatte keine Ahnung, wieviel Aufwand auf mich zukommen würde. Ich wollte klein anfangen, und im nächsten Jahr darauf aufbauen. Nach oben hin ist schließlich immer alles offen; aber beim ersten Mal zu versuchen, 10 Kliniken gleichzeitig zu jonglieren, und dann zu versagen, Leute zu enttäuschen, den Ruf von Child’s Play aufs Spiel zu setzen — das erschien mir kein guter Ansatz.

Child’s Play 2009

Nächstes Jahr werde ich früher anfangen, nach Krankenhäusern zu suchen. Und ich verändere meinen Ansatz: ich werde die Kliniksuche “outsourcen”. :)

Und zwar an Euch.

Kennt Ihr ein Kinderkrankenhaus oder eine Klinik mit pediatrischer Station, das u.U. generelles Interesse an einer Zusammenarbeit mit Child’s Play hat? Fragt bei der Klinikleitung oder beim Sozialdienst an — lasst sie wissen, dass es CP überhaupt gibt. Ich wage zu behaupten, dass die wenigsten Einrichtungen in Deutschland davon wissen. Wenn sie Interesse zeigen, habt Ihr drei Möglichkeiten:

• Ihr schickt sie direkt zu CP’s Kristin Lindsay.
• Ihr gebt Ihnen meine Kontaktdaten.
• Ihr kümmert Euch selbst darum. :)

Ich kann nichts versprechen, außer, dass ich jede Anfrage beantworten werde.

Mit etwas Glück wirds in 2009 ein größerer Erfolg, und die Presse hat mal etwas Anderes zu vermelden als “OMG KILLARSPIELE”. :)

Das Kleingedruckte

Ich bin kein Mitarbeiter von Child’s Play. Ich spreche nicht für die Organisation, und ich vertrete sie nicht. Ich bin lediglich ein freiwilliger Helfer, der sich auf eigene Faust und Kosten für Child’s Play in Deutschland stark macht. Alle Aussagen zu legalen Gegebenheiten wurden nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen gemacht, können aber trotzdem großer Unfug sein.

Child’s Play 2008 is on. Gamers in many countries of the world give money or buy toys, games or other gifts for child hospitals and stations and their little patients; partner hospitals in the US, the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Egypt are delighted about all the donations.

The Question

But where’s Germany? This question popped up in my head more than once during the summer. Why aren’t there any German hospitals participating in Child’s Play? In July, I’ve asked Kristin Lindsay (Penny Arcade’s project manager) about this, and preventively offered my help as “voluntary liason officer”.

Her answer arrived after a few days: “We currently have no partners there simply because none of us speak German. If you’d like to help out to get your local facility involved, that would be fantastic!”

The Job

In a nutshell, the volunteers are needed to make the initial contact between Child’s Play and potential partner hospitals. CP doesn’t know about these local facilities. How should they? They need local gamers, i.e. us, just like in all the other countries. Die people in charge in these clinics have questions, and it helps building trust in the idea when there are local contacts answering these questions in the local language.

From a legal point of view, the volunteers are not really involved. When a facility decides to become a so-called partner hospital, then there’ll be a legal agreement with the US charity itself. Child’s Play only works with so-called non-profit organizations, tho, this can be either the hospital directly, their volunteer guild or the hospital foundation, whichever is applicable.

We, the volunteers, come back into play later, if at all; for example when the clinic may require assistance in building a wish list. The business side of the charity, i.e. sales and shipping, is handled by Amazon.

The Story

About a week later, early August, I went to the hospital Munich Neuperlach. After my appointment I’ve asked around and found the social services office, where I was told that the clinic didn’t have a pediatric station. Bummer! But the friendly head of the office gave me names and phone numbers of people in two other, applicable local hospitals, Munich Harlaching und Munich Schwabing. Excellent!

Well, I didn’t quite expect to see people falling over each other to hear my case. Nonetheless I started doing my rounds on the phone. My two contacts were friendly and helpful, but not the people responsible for dealing with charities. Over and over I was given new names of other clinic personnel which would take care of “requests like yours”, and after a few detours I’ve ended up talking to people who at least could give me some information and the right names. It just didn’t really help right away: “The person you want to talk to is [XYZ], but he/she is sick/on vacation/on a business trip”.

During the next two months I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone. I’ve talked with nice hospital employees who appeared to be seriously interested, who asked for more information. Some of them had questions I couldn’t answer; luckily there was Kristin Lindsay. :) I’ve relayed Kristin’s answers in German to my contacts. I’ve called them on a weekly basis, asked for news and whether a decision had been made yet. But bureaucracy being what it is, this took some time, so I’ve called them again… and again… and again.

In short, I’ve done what I’ve “signed up for” when asking whether they would need a local volunteer.

End of Season One

But then, end of October, all of a sudden it was over (at least for this run). The administration of the Munich Municipal Hospitals told me in a short mail that while they found Child’s Play to be an interesting charity, they’ve ultimately decided against participating. A pity.

In the end there was nothing left to do for me but to thank them for the notice, and reminding them that 2008 very likely isn’t going to be the last year of CP.

Well, and that is the reason why there are no Child’s Play hospitals in Germany in 2008.

Debriefing

Personally, I think it’s a sad outcome, yes. I ponder whether I should’ve contacted more than just two clinics. The chances for success would’ve been much higher, of course. But this was the first time I’ve done something like this, and I had no idea what to expect or how much work it would entail. I figured I’d rather start out small, and increase the numbers in the next year. The sky’s the limit, sure; but trying to deal with 10 facilities at once in the first run, and running the risk of failure, of letting people down, of screwing with the reputation of Child’s Play — that didn’t look like a solid plan.

Child’s Play 2009

Next year I’m going to start out earlier in the year. Also, I’ve decided to change my approach: I’ll “outsource” the search for applicable and interested hospitals.

I’ll outsource them to you.

Do you know a German children’s hospital or a clinic with a pediatric station which might be interested in a contact to Child’s Play? Just ask the administration or the social services people — just tell them about CP. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say most clinics in Germany have no idea the charity exists. If they’re showing interest, you’ll have three options:

• You send them to CP’s Kristin Lindsay.
• You give them my contact data if they want to talk to a German.
• You handle them yourself. :)

Please keep in mind that I can’t promise anything, except that I’ll answer each request.

And with a bit of luck we’ll have more success in 2009, so the press might talk about something else than “OMG MURDAR SIMULATOR GAMSE”. :)

The Fineprint

I am not affiliated with Child’s Play. I do not speak for the organisation, and I am not their representative. All I am is a freelance volunteer who thinks the idea of having Child’s Play partner hospitals in Germany is a really neat one. All statements regarding legal conditions and practices have been made to the best of my knowledge, but still they might be poppycock.

I believe our conversation started when the phrase “I need some random Christmas crap” was muttered by one of us.

So obviously, I am not the only person having this particular problem. I am part of a larger group. But this knowledge is no real consolation. What to get family and friends to show them our affection? Each year the same questions arises, like a clockwork, and each year we’re more or less at a loss.¹

I wish there was a way to simulate long browsing sessions in a mall in a very very very condensed way, to allow for picking out gifts — while at the same time taking my very high-importance, hectic lifestyle into account. Oh, and if there was some soothing music, favorably some sort of Easy Listening, to sweeten the experience, that’d be great.

As it turns out, I had to build this simulation myself. I’ve decided to call it random.li, which, incidentally, also happens to be its domain! (I know, what are the chances?!)

Here’s a screenshot.

random.li grabs a number of different items from your favourite Amazon store, in your selected price range, shuffles them, and shows them to you in a 3×3 grid, along with the prices. You won’t even see their titles!

We’re talking about fast-paced, crack S.W.A.T. team-style gift finding. Shiny? Check! Affordable? Check! Bag it, we’re done!

Clicking an item (or hitting the related keyboard shortcut) will bring up some details: its title, what it is etc. A click on the details display will open its Amazon page in a new window.

It’s all rather simple, and I’ve tried to keep the amount of clutter low (yes, the music player in the lower left corner is an essential for me). There’s no registration, no wishlist, no shopping list, no learning curve to speak of. Go there, pick a store, your price range, maybe finetune the categories to search in, that’s it.

Well, have a look if you’re in the market for gifts. Maybe it’ll work for you as it works for me! Comments are welcome, and I’ve also set up a FriendFeed room for support issues.

If you like it, feel free to use the handy “Bookmark” button at the bottom of the random.li site to post the link to your favourite bookmarking / social networking / web 2.0 site, like delicious, Digg, Facebook, Twitter and whathaveyou. I might even send you a cookie if you do!

Cheers! :D

I’ll be shutting escaloop down in about a month or so. It was a nice toy and a fun experiment, I’ve used it to get into Ramaze, but I have neither the time nor the energy to work on it any further.

I recommend moving over to FriendFeed or Lifestream.fm for all your lifestream needs. I am sure there are many more such services, just look around. :)

If you should choose FriendFeed, look me up if you want.

Here’s one of them.

Your Most Recent Nike+ Run

As I’ve mentioned once or twice in the past, I’ve become a more or less avid runner during the last year. One central piece of my equipment is my Nike+. I don’t run without it. I am a geek, I love numbers. The Nike+ provides me with numbers. It makes running a game.

I sync my iPod with my iTunes after each run, and the Nike site is taking the raw data, crunching it, giving me graphs and more numbers, and (this is the interesting thing) badges for my website.

Now, I don’t really care about those. But when there are badges, there must be an API which provides the raw data to them. Looking behind the scenes, I quickly found it. It’s not password-protected or secured in any way; when you set your nikeplus.nike.com profile to “public”, the API will return some of your data (run overviews, run details etc. — no personal details).

So, knowing the API URL, I’ve built a pipe which will do a few things:

1. Accept any nikeplus.nike.com “brag”-type of link as parameter (when you’re logged in to the site, these are usually labelled “Share with your friends”, “Grab the link” etc.).
2. It will extract your public, numeric runner ID from this link.
3. It’ll fetch the data for the most recent run of the runner with this ID, i.e. you.
4. It’ll build an RSS feed with the data of your most recent run.

When writing the pipe, I’ve made a few assumptions, namely that…

• you sync your iPod after each run
• you’re using the Nike+ site
• you don’t run more than once per day.

Since I am lazy, I’ll only use the data for the most recent run, so the pipe’s results will be exactly that — just a single item, your most recent run.

That being said, I found this sufficient. After adding the pipe’s RSS URL as new “Custom RSS”-type service to Friendfeed, FF will effectively trigger the pipe a few times each day, and your latest run will be added to your stream quickly. Next time you sync your iPod, the Nike site will pick up the new data, the API will return the new data to the pipe, and the new run will be added as new Friendfeed item.

The pipe will post your runs in the following format: “[Nike+ runner name] ran [distance] [km/mi] in [time]“, for example “3R ran 11.3543 km in 1:03′54””. The message will link to the public page of the run — a page like this. (3R is my Nike+ moniker.)

Now, why would I want to add my runs to Friendfeed? Well, why not? For me, running is a nice part of my life. I’m actually enjoying it, I’m keeping it casual, and I am proud of every damn kilometer mark I pass. Plus, as mentioned, I am a geek, and I like to share what I build. :)

If you have questions or suggestions, speak your mind in the comments.

• Yahoo! Pipes: Recent Nike+ Run
• Friendfeed: the result — my Nike+ runs as added service.

Here’s one of them.

Steam Achievements

A few weeks ago, I’ve first tested and then bought the excellent CrossOver Games. It’s an emulator (basically a highly specialized version of WINE) which allows me to play a slate of Windows games, old and new, under OSX. So, that’s how I’ve spent big chunks of my spare time during the last few weeks: playing through the wonderful Portal and the great Half-Life 2 games. (On a related note, I’ve noticed the World of Goo demo is running flawlessly in CXG. Awesome!)

I’ve got the games via Steam, and was both delighted and highly annoyed to learn that newer Steam games offer achievements. You see, I am a sucker for achievements. I love them, even though they aren’t good for anything. I usually spend too much time trying to get this or that achievement. These meaningless little pixel badges are “awarded” for different things you manage to do in different games. You can get achievements in various games, on various platforms. For example on Xbox Live, or, as mentioned, on Steam.

So, being a male gamer in his mid-30s, I naturally like to use these superfluous thingies to brag about my mediocre gaming skills. Meaning, I want them to show up on my Friendfeed profile.

Thus, I wrote a pipe which grabs the achievements from any (public) Steam ID page (here’s mine), spitting them out in an usable format — in Friendfeed’s case, that’d be RSS. (Pipes also returns the data as JSON if you want, or even as a handy HTML badge you can put on your blog or whereever.)

I’ve then added the RSS URL of the finished pipe as new service (type: “Blog”¹) to Friendfeed.

So, that’s all there is to it. Maybe I am the only one caring about this type of thing, maybe not. If you have questions or suggestions, sound off in the comments. :)

• Yahoo! Pipes: Steam Achievements
• Friendfeed: the result — my Steam achievements as added service.

During the last couple of months I’ve developed an increasing interest in the US elections. More or less closely following the news about them, scrutinizing and evaluating their talking points and ideas, I’ve become rather familiar with both candidates, formed an opinion — slowly realizing that I am actually more interested in the politics of a country I don’t live in and an electorate system I can neither influence nor participate in than in my own nation’s.

Allow me to elaborate how I came to care about domestic US politics.

A couple of years ago, on a sunny day in September, I was sitting in my office working, when a friend pinged me and told me to turn on the TV, now. A few fanatics had hijacked several passenger planes, using them as weapons. We sat in front of the screen, staring in horror at the looped footage, and couldn’t believe our eyes. I remember very clearly turning to my coworkers, telling them that it was very likely we were witnessing the first day of World War III; someone had just attacked one of the most gung-ho empires of the World (no offense) — this was bound to have long-lasting repercussions. No-one would or could expect the USA to take this lying down. I was expecting to see the US military turning some small part of the globe into a glassed parking lot.

I remember this fear. It was a deep-seated worry for the World as a whole, as meta as this may sound.

I spent the next few months watching news from the United States very closely. The increase in domestic security, the preparations for the war, the passing of the Patriot Act — to me, the country resembled a wounded predator; maddened by pain, yet ready to throw itself against the ghostly attacker, lusting for the kill. Pretty much everything I heard in terms of news, speeches and sound bites, was not very rational.

Quite frankly, it scared the living shit out of me.

Trying my best to cope with this feeling of terror building up inside of me, I started to look for more reasonable voices from the “inside”. Surely all the hate mongering and Giulianiesque approaches to making statements¹ couldn’t be the whole of it. Someone had to remember there is more to any issue than just black and white! But there was all this “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” madness coming from the US government, and it was not just freaking me out — I found it highly insulting to the rest of mankind, because it was clearly implying the other nations were either not sympathetic or not interested or just too stupid to come to their own conclusions.

So… There must be some voices of reason, no? Still shaken I started to dig deeper, ignoring the main media outlets, looking for something that could rejuvenate my opinion that not all of the USA had gone mad with pain.

To make it short: yes, I found them. Which was a great relief, because it gave me back my hope that logic and reason might prevail in the long run. I stuck to some of these newfound sources; I read a number of political blogs, for example, and I watch the fine offerings in political satire by your own Comedy Channel.

…

Fast forward to the 2004 US elections.

Well. We all know how that turned out. Speechless and highly disgusted I witnessed the mud shit slinging of the “friends” of the Republican candidate; the despicable and dishonorable “Swift Boat Veterans For Truth” campaign being just the tip of the iceberg.

No matter what you may think about 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry — he was a man fighting for his country in a war he didn’t start, apparently committing acts of bravery, saving his comrade’s lives, and many people took a piss at that. The 2008 version of this would be claiming John McCain was merely taking a vacation back in Vietnam, or running a brothel in Hanoi — this would be wrong, both in a factual and moral sense, and the Republicans would hang you in the middle of the Washington Mall.

So, how could this happen?! How could this possibly work out for the Republican side?

Anyways… I’ve already mentioned my disbelief and disgust. Still highly worried about the state of the Union.

…

Fast forward again: September 2008.

The last few years have been less than optimal for the World. I don’t say all of it is the fault of the United States; far from it. But when you have one of the major players acts like he owns the place and gives a flying fuck about everyone else, it’s causing problems. (To be fair, many of the others aren’t much better, tho.) I am very sure many things could have turned out better had more diplomatic, subtle and less arrogant paths been taken.

And the US is still scaring me. The reason for my being afraid has changed, though. Since 2001, many things have been going down the drain, both inside and outside the country, fundamentalism is on the rise, and many people acting highly erratic.

If anything, the World is more complex now, yet the government of one of the most influential nations on this planet is busy trying to “secure the borders” and beating its chest, trying to intimidate other countries and ignoring global problems.

And they continue to claim the position of “global leadership” without actually leading.

…

In the presidential race this time are both a 72 year old and a 47 year old man. Here’s my rundown from the outside.

The former has a lot of experience in the inner workings of Washington, D.C., agrees with most things still-president Bush has said and done, and doesn’t know how many houses he owns. I’ve seen him in interviews a few years ago, and he seemed decent and honest enough. I liked the old John McCain better than the new “100% P.O.W.!” version; obviously his strategists have decided that having him retell his prison years over and over again is policy enough. Which I find a bit sad since it reduces his whole life and accomplishments to those 5 years in a Vietnam prison; on top of that, in the current context, it’s just political fluff. He is very vague about what he’s planning to do should he end up being elected. Topics like the fight against poverty (both domestic and global) and climate change are marginalized points of his campaign, at best.

The latter has not as much Washington experience, but spent a good amount of his years working for the disenfranchised, is a professor in constitutional law, and seems to rather spend his time talking with people and about actual issues (like fighting poverty or climate change), while refusing to return the slander thrown at him by his opponents.

And they are doing it again. They mock his work as community organizer, which in my book is something that you couldn’t disagree with by any standards. It’s basically one of the Christian virtues — I know that, and I am an agnostic. Why do these self-proclaimed Christians mock somebody for showing compassion? What is wrong with these people?

It pains me to witness hypocrisy on such a scale.

…

So why do I, a German in Germany, root for Barack Obama?

Because the World is a closed system. While I don’t believe in the Butterfly Effect, I strongly believe in setting a higher or lower standard for yourself and thereby giving others the idea to follow suit. Leading –or failing– by example. What works for small groups will work on a global level as well.

A change in leadership in any bigger country in the World will indirectly have an effect on me. This is why I care. (Some issues are more important than others, of course.)

So I was very, very delighted to hear a presidential candidate of one of the biggest countries in the World stand up and say: “These are the problems. Denial doesn’t work anymore. Listen, I have kids, so do you, so we’ll better fix this shit for their sake — and here’s a rather detailed plan.” ²

Yes, I feel strongly about the impending climate change. Everyone should. We are talking about man’s homestead among the stars. This is our house. Our only house. If we burn this place down, then we’re truly, really, utterly fucked. I am puzzled why anyone would hesitate talking or thinking about it, let alone working on preventing it or slowing it down. These people are delusional idiots.

Please take a minute to compare both Obama’s page on fighting climate change and McCain’s page. One is a finely formulated plan which gives the impressions people thought about and discussed it at length; the other is a rephrased version of “Someone should do something at some point in time …oh look, an adorable kitten” an intern was asked to put up so the number of 404 errors in the log files would go down.

(On a related note: let’s assume Senator McCain actually believes in climate change and the need to do something about it — the man is still 72 years old. I wish him a long life, but statistically speaking, chances are much higher that he’ll die a natural death within the next four years than someone who is 25 years younger. Should he die in office, we’d all end up with an US president who doesn’t believe in man-made climate change. That’s basically what we have already.)

Now, the European Union is working on fighting climate change, too. Yes, not all EU countries are good at it. But I am proud to say my government seems to care. Still, the EU is just one major player, and a bit limited due to its internal structure. The more big players stop with the lip service and start actually working on it, the better.

So, to sum up:

There are two candidates in the current US presidential election cycle. I believe both are decent and honest men. It’s just that one of them seems to care about the actual issues (both domestically and globally), appears to have the fundamental understanding of what’s going on in the World, and the right mind set to actually get to work.

I don’t think Barack Obama is the second coming of Jesus. That thought is ridiculous. I think he’s just a guy with the right ideas. I also think under his leadership the US would ask more of the EU, which is fine with me. I prefer a real, actual partnership over the “We’re heading this way, just follow, suckers” methods of the past.

It is my belief that he (working with his VP) has the potential and tenacity to not only nudge the World in the right direction, but to restore the moral standing of the USA — and to have everyone calm down again. It is my belief that others will follow.

This is the 21st century. I’d really see the US move forward again, for it would actually help the World as a whole.

…

Well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

If you’re an US citizen, come November, I’d like to ask you to make a choice based on logic.

Please, keep the big picture in mind.

Please, do not get fooled by the sepia-tinted pictures of the good old, simpler, imaginary times in small town America.

Please, use your right to vote.

Thank you.