Jon Lord left the stage

Another sad day for musicians around the world. Today it was announced that Jon Lord passed away on 16.07.2012 after a long suffering with cancer. Jon was the most famous rock organ player of all times, it was him who formed the sound of Deep Purple like no other band member. For me he always was a teacher of what can be achieved on a Hammond Organ and I am deeply saddened about his passing away. He passed from darkness to light and who knows - may be he will join Jimmy and Billy to form a heavenly organ trio.

Rest in Piece Jon
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Steve Jobs R.I.P.

Today is a sad day for the world - at least for the IT-world. Steve Jobs has died after long sickness, just 56 years old. Nobody has shaped the future like he did. With Steve Jobs the world lost a great visionary and I never thought that I might feel such grief about the death of a person I did not even know personally. But somehow he was, and still will be around us like a good friend who will be remembered every time I use my iPhone or my iPad.

Steve Jobs R.I.P.
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Me and the "nude scanner"

Recently I found myself at Hamburg airport. At the security check they give a choice of going through the normal procedure or the voluntarily participate in a “nude scanner” test. Being a technologically affine person I choose the path to the latter. Assuming that this will be a “total recall” like experience I was very eager. However I had to learn that we are anything but close to “total recall”. Here’s the conversation which preceded the test:

me: “hi”
the security lady: “hi, do you have a laptop?”
me: “sure, and an iPad!”
she: “place it on the belt separately!”
me: “but should not the nude scanner do the magic?”
she: “nope”

so I take the stuff out of my briefcase and put it on the belt

she: “take off your jacket and the rain jacket”
me: “but should not the nude scanner...?”
she interrupts me: “just take it off PLEASE”

so I take off my jacket and rain jacket

she: “the belt too!”
me “but should....”
she interrupts me: “it disturbs the machine!”

I take off my belt

she: “and the watch!”
me: “excuse me?”
she: “it disturbs the machine!”

I take off my watch

she: “anything out of your pockets”
me (quietly) “#+*#!$%&&??/!&&!!!!!!!”

I take everything out of my pockets

finally I am allowed to pass through the “magic gate” and the gate beeps.....”what the hell does the thing find now?”, I thought by myself.

The guard on the other side of the scanner points to a display. And indeed, the image on the display showed two yellow markings, one at my neck and one in the right pocket of my trousers.

So he starts the usual patting and fiddling around with the beeping machine. And he finds the golden chain around my neck and BIG SURPRISE a zipper inside the right pocket of which I myself didn’t even know that it existed!

In the end the whole procedure took about twice as long as the normal security check!

My verdict is that the “nude scanner” technology is a solution in search for a problem and as long as they can not distinguish between a belt buckle, a watch and a gun they are not much more than an expensive and time consuming toy!

And they are definitely not a time saver!











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Using USB Audio Interfaces with Apple's iPad

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