I‘ve had the lucky opportunity to having been able to listen to a lot of new music albums over the past year. This was due to two primary reasons: (a) I have to ride 2 hours by train each time I‘m heading for work, which results in lots of free time where I can listen to music. (b) While I‘ve previously owned several iPods, I never really carried them with me all the time. There were often situations where I‘d forgot the iPod or not expected to need it. Not so with my iPhone. I always have it on, thus resulting in a boosted music experience.

As a consequence of this, I could listen to a lot of interesting and new music during the past months. And I‘d like to write short reviews for those which really really impressed me. Beginning with ‚Maxïmo Park‘ – ‚A Certain Trigger‘.

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As you can see, I just got my iPhone today. Software version is, due to Carrier-Reasons still at 1.0.2, and I plan to keep it that way for some time.
First impression is: Awesome. Absolutely awesome and amazing.
Although it lacks some of the features which I would take for granted in modern Mobile Phones, it shines on many other feature-comparisons.
I’ll write more soon.

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Kostbaren Gütern ist ihre Seltenheit inhärent. Es gibt Güter, wie etwa Diamanten, deren Seltenheit naturgegeben und damit unbeeinflussbar ist. Es gibt aber auch Güter deren Seltenheit artifiziell und damit beeinflussbar ist. Ein schönes Beispiel dafür ist Geld: Wenn auch eine Erhöhung der im Umlauf befindlichen 50 Eur Scheine die Inflation expotentiell ansteigen lassen würde, wären dennoch gleichermaßen der Seltenheitsfaktor und insbesondere der Wert stagnierend.
Dabei muss zudem noch die externe und interne Beeinflussbarkeit bedacht werden. Die Seltenheit mancher Güter kann nur, unabhängig von uns, extern durch andere Systeme verändert werden, während die Seltenheit anderer Güter direkt von uns verändert werden kann. So könnte ich selbst nicht die Anzahl der im Umlauf befindlichen 50 Eur Scheine erhöhen, während die Institution Landeszentralbank oder Europäische Zentralbank dazu vermutlich eher in der Lage wäre.
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I just got my Seat in the main Conference Hall! Totally awesome. Not too far from the stage, so I’ll be able to see his steveness himself!
There’re so many people here, it’s crazy.. I wonder what Steve will present to us today..
Never imagined I’d be here someday, so I’ll stop blogging and start enjoying now

—
Update Take a look at this nice Leopard DVD Picture

The Keynote was awesome! More on this later.

So langsam taucht all das was die ganzen Reporter in den letzten Wochen hier aufgenommen und festgehalten haben in der Presse auf. Wer an einem kurzen Einblick in das, was mich die letzten 1.5 Jahre schlaflose Nächte gekostet hat, interessiert ist, dem lege ich diese Reszension des Spiegel Online ans Herz:

Bei den Bildern ist es übrigens Bild 15, das einen Teil aus meinem Verantwortungsbereich  zeigt: Der sog. Medienring, 48 Videos die Synchron in einem Ring laufen und so ein gewaltiges Videopanorama bieten. Umrahmt wird das ganze von einer riesigen LED-Wand, ebenfalls von unserer Software gespeist. Der Spiegel schreibt dazu:

Der Ausstellungsraum “Gegenwart” wird umrahmt von 48 Monitoren, auf denen in 16 Ländern Mercedes-Autos fahren. Eine Video-Installation, die 24 Stunden in jeweils zwölf Minuten zusammenschnurren lässt. Während in Shanghai Nacht ist, tuckert ein alter Mercedes durch die grelle Sonne Syriens, inklusive Geräuschkulisse: Tüt-tüt, Brrrrumm. Allein vor diesem Kunstwerk, für das ein Kamerateam ein Dreivierteljahr quer über den Globus unterwegs war, könnte man eine Stunde verbringen.

Und an dieser Stelle, zwischen Brummen und Tüten, tief im Bauch des futuristischen Museums-Kolosses, lässt es sich nicht mehr leugnen: Ein bisschen Mythos steckt tatsächlich in diesen Mauern.

The year is almost over again. Only several hours are left before 2006 comes to replace the already ill-fated 2005.
A newyear  always comes with new hopes, ideas, goals.
When the last year started, I had hopes and ideas which worked out
totally different than I expected. Usually New Years Resolutions are
part of the goals which one makes for the next year, and just as I had
no goals, I had no resolutions either. Looking back I have to say tht
it wasn’t a bad year at all. Everyone has his up’s and down’s and so I
had times when I was in deep despair just as I had times when I felt so
lucky that I could have cried.
Understanding this I still think that it might be usefull to make some
real New Years Resolutions, on the one hand to have something to look
back to at the end of the coming year, and on the other to have some
sort of plan, or collection of goals. Something to refer to if I’m not
sure which direction to go. And as I’m already in the busy again (I
need to leave for a new years party in <60min) I’ll start with my
resolutions now.

* I’ll stop smoking. This one is important. I’ve actually never been a
real smoker.. I’m more someone who smokes from time to time when at a
party. But I need to adress this issue now before it starts getting
worse. This will be a tough one as I only smoke when I’m drunk, and
when I’m drunk I hardly have the will to refuse a cigarette, but I’ll
try my best.

* I’ve to lose weight. Adiposity has been in a strong battle with me
over the years. And won. My current job leaves little to no time for
sport, and the fact that I’m almost living in a hotel isn’t good for
nutrition either. So I have to force me to eat good healthy food
everytime I can, and do sports everytime schedule allows it. Only a
combined attack with strong will can help me here.

* Spanish. Yes again, I’m still eager to enhance my basic spanish
skillset onto a conversation-friendly level which would allow me to
talk with my argentinian friends without frequently having to dig
through tons of gestures. I bought spanish books recently and reading
them is not that bad, I need to learn some many words, but at least I
can work around the language for now. For the next year I’ll hope to be
able to greatly enhance my vocabulary so I finally can start writing
blog posts in spanish which make sense in the one or other way.

* Dutch. Everything in life has a dual nature, and since I need to
learn dutch due to some requirements I enforced upon myself, I thought
I might very well try to do it next to learning spanish. My brain
should be in the right mode when I’m busy learning spanish, so learning
dutch in addition to it can only make it easier.

* Set goals. This one is important. I, as described above, lack goals.
I have plans, ideas and whatnot, but no goals. I’ve read some
interersting books regarding this topic now (for example David Allen’s
‘Getting Things Done’) but I didn’t adapt that knowledge yet.
With the events and results of what I currently plan for 2006, a first real set of goals should be possible.

* Blog more. Yeah just that.

Ok, that’s it. These are my new years resolutions. If you see me not adhering to them, feel free to allude me.
Thanks for reading.

Have a Happy New Years.
Best wishes for 2006
Benedikt Terhechte

This is my first videogame remix after 3 years ob absence from video
game remixing (for the uninformed readers: yeah there is such a thing
as a videogame music remix community), and I’m really happy with the
outcome. I might even continue this path and do some more videogame
remixes again in the future. Now a blurb of text about this track:
This is my submission to JoeCams excellent Earthbound remix project “Bound Together“. There are 32 submissions from some of the best remixers out there, the whole thing rocks darn hard. You should really go and download the others too.
This remix builds upon the Coffee Break theme and thus concentrates on something which is a vital part of my life. Coffee.
Most of this track was made during my 14 day vacation on the greek
island Mykonos. The relaxing atmosphere of sunny beaches caught on to
this track, too – I think. The title means ‘Coffee Break’ in greek. I
hope you’ll enjoy it. The guitar parts were played by the famous Frank van’t Ende (Diggi Dis).

You can download the track here

I’d be happy about some comments, criticism and stuff.

Head over to apple.com to see them tribute Rosa Parks instead of showing of their products.

On Friday Raphael and me we went to Anita’s birthday in Enschede (NL).
We had funny times over there; nice conversations and laughed a lot. I
took some pictures with my new K750i Mobilephone (which sports a 2mpx
camera).  Pictures follow..

If everything works well, I should sit on a plane to spain tomorrow. If
everything works not so well I should sit on a plane to italy tomorrow.
And if nothing works I should sit in front of this computer again
tomorrow.
We’ll try ulti-last-minute tomorrow. We’ll drive to the airport and see
whether we can find a flight to spain or italy tomorrow. Vacation would
rock, lets see if that works out.