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Promised? Here’s the followup!
By pfuetz, November 27, 2006 11:54
I did promise the final review, so here it is:
Yesterdays I finished the Cornwell book, and from the fact, that it took me so long to finish it, you can simply derive the fact, that I do not like it… The end was hastingly put together, that plot in total a little bit boring. So, not recommeneded!
Today I started the Donna Leon book: “Blood from a stone”, and that was much more intriguing, aka a page-turner. So, stay tuned…
A sad week… :-(
By pfuetz, November 27, 2006 11:47
Last week was a sad week:
It’s been the week of the death of great people from the “Cinema” or “Movie” businees:
Philippe Noiret and Robert Altman died… :-(
What else can I say? You gave us many moving moments in cinema! Thanks!
UNESCO Heritage…
By pfuetz, November 8, 2006 07:06
On sunday, it’s been the first time, that I did visit the only UNESCO Nature heritage, that Germany has:
Grube Messel (Messel Pit Fossil Site)
There are many cultural, but only one natural in Germany. And it’s really close to me, so shame on me… ;-)
The thing, that’s most interesting about Messel is the fact, that it’s post-dinosaur (dinosaurs vanished about 65 million years ago), and provides an insight into the early years of highly developed mammals (a period of 1.5 million years around 45 million years ago). What’s even better is, that it’s possible to retrieve structures from stomach-contents, colours of insects, etc, etc…
And the best is: Originally that’s a place, that should become a big garbage dump, which, if used as such, would have destroyed all that evidence… Joschka Fischer, our former foreign minister did rescue that site during his second period of minister of environments for the state of Hessen (he’s been the first minister from the green party in local german government).
As with all these sites, it’s important to have a good guide, and we had one! We learnt quite a bit, and enjoyed it a lot.
Highly recommended!
Winetasting, again…
By pfuetz, October 31, 2006 12:06
I do live in Darmstadt, Germany, as mentioned before, and here we do have a renowned “provider” or “supplier” of mainly southern european good foods, including olive-oil, and wines: E. Molina in the Adelungstr. 3. They also do provide, twice a year, a customer winetasting event in the so-called Prinz-Emil-Schlösschen, which is an open event during two days. Last weekend was the fall re-occurence of this for this year. They charge 15,- EURO to try to cover costs, but looking at the amount of available stuff, I do doubt, that the money covers the costs. They even offer a refund, if you buy some of the stuff later on in their shops (you can do so for a month) for more than 60,- EUR. In total, there were about 220 wines, proseccos, oils, grappa, etc. available for tasting.
We went there with some friends, and started with a prosecco. As I’m more the dry wine drinker, I also choose a dry one, namely the Prosecco Spumante Brut from Nino Franco from Valdobbiadene. I’m not a great fan of proseccos, so I can’t really comment on this one. It was fine, is all, I can say.
We then went over to one of the spanish tables to grab a couple of spanish wines to go with the dinner-snacks: bread with cheese, salami, olives.
After the snack, we continued with some italian red wines, and then returned to spanish ones. After a long series, we finally decided to finish with Grappa and/or Brandy. I did not note the order, I only made short notes. And, we all knew quite well, what we wanted, so overall, we didn’t have many failures.
We had a nice long evening, with many wines tasted. The next day, we didn’t have headaches, so, we really enjoyed the evening!
Overall, I did taste (short comments in brackets):
- Villa Pigna, Offida, Marken
- Vergaio, Rosso Piceno Superiore DOC, 2001 (good!!)
- Rosso Vellutato IGT marche, 2003 (good for meals!!)
- Briccaio, Vellutato IGT Marche, 2001 (very good!)
- Rozzano IGT Marche, 2003 (very good!!)
- Azienda Agricola Pecchenino, Dogliani(CN), Piemont
- Quass, Barbera D’Alba, DOC, 2004 (very good, but still needs to rest some time)
- Fontanafredda, Serralunga D’Alba e Barolo, Piemont
- Raimonda, Barbera D’Alba, DOC, 2003 (good, but still needs some time to rest)
- Barolo Serralunga D’Alba, DOCG, 2001 (very good!!)
- Alessandro De Conciliis e figli, Prignano, Kampanien
- Donnaluna Aglianico, IGT Paestum, 2005 (good, but smells very good!)
- Fattoria Villa Matilde, Cellole, Kampanien
- Falerno del Massico Rosso DOC, 2003 (good with meals, light)
- Aglianico, IGT, Rocca dei Leoni, 2005 (this was not my taste, and it was too new)
- Azienda Agricola Maculan, Breganze, Venetien
- Palazzotto, Cabernet Sauvignon Breganze DOC, 2004 (very good!!)
- Torcolato, DOC, 2003 (very good, also as a desert-wine)
- Cantina Cortegiara, Cortegiara, Venetien
- Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, DOC, 2003 (very good!!)
- Recioto della Valpolicella DOC, 2002 (very good, also as a desert-wine)
- Tenimenti Angelini, Montepulciano, Toskana
- Val di Suga, Brunello di Montalcino, DOCG, 2001 (very good!!)
- Bodegas Castaño, Yecla, D.O. Yecla
- Pozuelo Crianza D.O. Yecla, 2003 (well-known, this is the 2003, good!!)
- Bodegas Sierra Salina, Villena, D.O. Alicante
- Puerto Salinas, D.O. Alicante, 2003 (good!!)
- Selección de la casa: Vinos Paco Molina
- PACO MOLINA “Prestigio” D.O. Yecla, 2004 (good!)
- PACO MOLINA “Expresión” D.O. Yecla, 2003 (very good, but only with meals)
- Bodega Casa Juan, Laguardia, Rioja Alavesa
- Cuarteto, Tinto Crianza, D.O.C. Rioja, 2002, Selección Molina (tastes similar like the next, but only costs half!)
- Cuarteto, Tinto Reserva D.O.C. Rioja, 2001, Selección Molina (good!)
- And we finished with: Rocca delle Macie, Castellina in Chianti, Toskana
- Here we had a Grappa and a Brandy, very, very, very good. I didn’t note the names… ;-(
- And we started with:
- Prosecco Spumante Brut, Nino Franco, Valdobbiadene, DOC
Solaris and your random x86 hardware…
By pfuetz, October 31, 2006 03:22
Folks,
there no longer is an excuse not to at least check out Solaris on your random x86 hardware.
Just check the availability of the drivers for your hardware by simply running a small Java Applet. It even lists non-Sun drivers and provides the links to the appropriate pages.
So, here it is: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/device_detect.html
And here’s, what it looks like on my old “Aldi”-PC:
And here’s, what it looks like on my Toshiba Tecra M2:
The thing, that makes my curious with the M2 is the fact, that the M2 does contain more devices, which are ignored here:
- There is a PCIbased SD-Card slot (NO, it’s not USB based!)
- There is an InfraRed Device
You marry software, and only date hardware
By pfuetz, October 18, 2006 07:40
You marry software, and only date hardware.
That’s been a comment at our DataCenter/Technical Systems Ambassador Conference some weeks back, and still, that phrase is so simple and appealing, that I do not need to add anything here… ,-)
Networks and the iPod, Part II
By pfuetz, October 18, 2006 04:55
I just discovered, that Greg had been writing about this over a year back… ;-)
SunCluster/x86 in 32-bit is there!
By pfuetz, October 17, 2006 05:33
Folks,
just got confirmation, that the 32-bit version of SunCluster is available (again). It’s not yet publicly, but if there is enough demand, Cluster Engineering will re-think. So, if you non-Sun people want to play around with a really stable, prooven, renowned HA-solution, send me an email, and I’ll collect, and hopefully, we will find SunCluster/x86 in 32-bit on the official download page (but currently without support, just as everything, that you can download there for free). If you then want that piece supported, we need to get Engineering to re-think the support strategy for this product.
So, applause to SC-Eng for again making it available!
Networks and the iPod?
By pfuetz, October 17, 2006 04:49
Dan Berg has some interesting insights into the relevance of the iPod in the light of global wireless network coverage. Read his report here: http://blogs.sun.com/djberg/entry/will_networks_kill_the_ipod I did also provide some comments on his comments page.
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