Anyway, it’s here, and I love it!

Here’s a few pictures for posterity:

The pictures are not too good, I’ll edit one of these days with some pictures taken with natural light.

So this Salsa Casseroll frame is going to be the basis of my new bike for long distances. It’ll be mostly built around Shimano 105/Ultegra parts.

I’ll post some pictures of the building process and a list of parts later.

Anyway, the blog is practically dead, and I’m thinking of ways of reviving it. To make it interesting for me, so I actually get the motivation to write something in the evening when I come back from work. And maybe make it a little more interesting for the couple of people who somehow find their way here. 

Macs and bicycles, that’s probably the next focus. Stay tuned… (or not) 

I had to laugh hard when I stumbled upon the name of one of our clients at work, look at that and click to visit their site:

They’re German-speakers, should someone let them know?

BTW, yes, I know it’s been ages since my last post but well, I’ve been very busy lately. Hopefully things will be a little more settled for me in the next few weeks.Yeah, hopefully. 

So I just have to fire up Dictionary.app or use the widget, and I have an ultra-quick translation. You just type in your word in English or German and it will give you the translation in the corresponding language right away.

It’s only compatible with Leopard since Tiger’s version of Dictionary.app doesn’t support plugins.This is one feature of Leopard I never thought I’d love

No no, this is not groundless attack from my part, this really is a legitimate question.

My question has been prompted by her reaction to this story. The Nouvel Observateur claims that her new husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, has sent an SMS to his ex-wife Cecilia just 8 days before he married Carla Bruni saying “If you come back now, I’ll call it all off”.

I know, this is bad journalism and doesn’t really call for an answer, but she went ahead nonetheless, after a few days of preparing the answer. The answer is in two parts, and both are appallingly stupid. She said “the lawsuit that my husband has initiated is not against a member of the press, but against the ‘new means of disinformation’”, by that she means the Internet of course. And she goes on to say: “If this kind of site had existed during the war, what do you think would have happened as far as denouncing the Jews is concerned?”
Now that made me sit right up on my chair. Did she actually compare the Nouvel Observateur to the collaborationist press of WWII over a stupid f****** SMS? Yes she did, well done Carla, you’re not embarrassing yourself and more importantly you’re showing that you definitely have the standing of a true First Lady. I can’t believe people doubted you. And by the way, this is a perfect example of Godwin’s Law.

Let’s go back to the first part of her answer: “new means of disinformation”. “New”? what the heck do you mean, “new”? The Internet has been a huge vector of all kinds of misleading information and information warfare for over a decade Carla, remember, that goes back to when you were still in your 20s… There’s nothing new about it. You’re a model, that means you should know a little bit about the media.

I personally find it rather amusing that she’s been an integral part of this massive PR and communication operation set up by her husband, the French President, over their relationship and marriage, they’ve both been riding the wave to the max and probably counted on the Internet to spread the news even faster. And now suddenly she spits in the soup and blames it on the media and Internet.

So Carla, are you really stupid? Or do you think we are stupid?

Believe me, I will definitely make true on my earlier promise to cycle between France and Germany next time, instead of taking the bus.

If they’re small dogs, it’s usually okay, you can stay on the saddle and go past. You just have to be careful that it doesn’t jump into the spokes of the wheels.
But with larger dogs, I get rather intimidated. One technique consists in climbing down from the bike, walking slowly past the big fella maintaining the bike between him and you.

I thought it was bad enough to have to deal with stray dogs in the French countryside, but I was reading a post on a bicycle forum about cycling in Turkey and nasty encounters with Kangal dogs.
This is sort of the “official” Turkish breed, and they’re used by Turkish shepherds as guardian dogs for sheeps.

A typical Kangal dog, complete with spiked collar.

So apparently this is very frequent to run into these when cycling in Turkey. I’ve read that when they are well-bred, they develop a strong instinct of protection for their flock, and they go as far as chasing wolves that attack sheeps (hence the spiked collar which protect them from wolf bites at the neck).
Problem is cyclists are also considered intruders, and those dogs are extra large and fit. I really like their appearance, but man I would feel very uncomfortable having to deal with them, look at the size of this dog:

I’m not sure I feel like going cycling in Turkey…

For European citizens, we can travel through all those countries with just a simple national ID. This is even better for non-EU citizens who can now travel to these countries with a common Schengen Visa.

Goody goody!

An article on the BBC website.