dreikönigskuchen-geheimnis gelöst (with short english explanation)

aus aktuellem anlass und schweizbezug in deutsch:

letzten donnerstag abend (dreikönigstag) war ich mit mara essen. (lustigerweise per zufall am gleichen tisch wie urs, leider sind wir nicht richtig ins gespräch gekommen, er war mit seinem kollegen über anderes am diskutieren[1]). aus aktuellem anlass kamen wir auf die dreikönigskuchen zu sprechen. mit meiner rudimentären statistischen ausbildung hab ich behauptet, dass fairerweise der könig im kuchen völlig zufällig verteilt sein sollten, das heisst also in 6 von 7 fällen aussen, in 1 von 7 fällen innnen [2]. irgenwie hab ich dann mit mara gewettet, dass das so ist (ich weiss aber nicht mehr was wir wetteten…). ich wollt dann grad mal bei den jowa-gielen anrufen, um nachzufragen, aber die arbeiten ja abends nicht mehr. freitags hab ichs dann vergessen. heute beim velölen kams mir wieder in den sinn, und ich hab dann heute nachmittag nach schönbühl telefoniert.

ein freundlicher herr hat nach einmal klingeln das telefon abgenommen, sein name sei hier aus datenschutzgründen nicht verraten (ich hab ihn nicht informiert, dass ich unser gespräch aufnehme, t610 sei dank…).

mit ein bisschen brei um den bart schmieren [3] und flunkern konnt ich dann die info aus ihm rausholen. in migros-dreikönigstagskuchen ist der kleine plastikkönig immer in einer der kugeln aussen, niemals drinnen. zum selber nachhören hier der relevante teil meines mitschnittes des gesprächs: 3koenigskuchen.wav (388 kb). ich hab nun also eine wette verloren und weiss nicht mal mehr, was wir gewettet haben.

english translation: on the 6. january we have a rite where we eat a special kind of cake, the three kings cake. there’s a little plastic king hidden in one of the balls of the cake. whoever gets that piece of cake is the king for the day. i had a bet with a friend of mine on how the plastic king is “distributed” in the cake. to prove my theory i called the bakery of one of the two biggest grocers in switzerland. the linked .wav file is the proof that i was wrong with my theory. (this is swiss german by the way :-)

[1]: ich war zuerst nicht 100% sicher, ob es urs ist, ich les zwar sein blog, hab ihn aber nur einmal kurz live gesehen. aber sein kollege musste nur ein wort erwähnen, damit ich sicher wusste, dass ers ist: bitflux. wenn zwei typen in bern das bei pizza essen erwähnen muss einer urs sein.

[2]: wohlgemerkt, nur bei einem kuchen mit insgesamt 7 gleichgrossen kugeln, die standardversion der migrosbäckerei jowa.

[3]: ich weiss nicht, ob herr X einen bart hat, das sagt man aber so.

picture of the week 01

yesterday i’ve been diving again. yes, diving in the cold thuner-see, the water was around 5 °C. we’ve again been at the schönörtli (german for nice place).

because i wore a dry suit [1] i was only nearly freezing my ass off (more the hands than the ass, ’cause i was wearing wet gloves). the dive was really spectacular, the sight underwater was amazing, much better than in the summer. and it’s really fun to dive with a dry suit, you feel like stuck in a balloon and can shift the air in thta balloon depending on the position you have. the picture below shows raymond and beat during their dive, having a break at the surface. can you see how clear the water is, you’re able to see the stones at the bottom…

my lesson learned: winter bike leggings are not suited as undergarment in a dry suit. a thick woollen jumper is suited.

Dsc04221-1

[1]: thanks mac for letting me test the suit for free.

those mash-ups don’t stop!

i’ve already mentioned some mash-ups, here comes one more, not exactly a mash-up, but a band that mixes metallica and beatles songs: beatallica. all 11 songs can be conveniently downloaded as a torrent-file or as single .mp3-downloads. get them while they last.

oh, and just to make this post more complete (or actually post a real mash-up), did i ever mention the beastles? an excellent mash-up between the beatles and the beastie boys.

beatallica: [via powerbook blog]

beastles: [via boingboing]

spy on other people [update2]

this reminds me of the old days on the internet, where one was able to steer a model train via a remote interface [1]:

use google to find “vunerable” security cams. if you take a look at this google search then you will find a huge amount of unsecured webcams, most of them might be security cameras. pretty much all of them can be controlled via your browser [2] so you’re free to spy on all different kinds of things, may it be car rentals, laundromats, japanese hotel lobbies or bays or a whole friggin list of things!

[1]: more spy-related links can be found at the bottom of this article in the new scientist, where i also was able to find the link for the model train…

[2]: beware OS X users: safari doesn’t support the streaming jpeg technique that most of these cameras use, so you must use firefox for those links…

[via boingboing and metafilter]

update: mathias noted that the link to google is wrong. i corrected it.

update2: here’s some more on this on boinboing.

picture of the week 00

i wanted to (digitally) record the ibrahim ferrer show that drs3 aired last thursday evening so the post about enabling your ipod to record anything on hackaday came just right. but after installing linux on my first-generation ipod (see here) with the extremely painless ipodlinux installer i could not get it to record more than 5 second snippets (but played some games on it…) so i figured out an easier way. i started the live-stream of drs3 and used wiretap1 to record the concert. nonetheless i’ve now got two working operating systems on my ipod.

Dsc04088

ps: now i just have to figure out how i can burn the 2h show on one cd to give to nina (which was the point from the beginning….)

1: the pro version works like a charm in the free mode as long as you don’t need to record directly to mp3/aac. i used itunes for the conversion…

gmail invitations [update]

i again have got to give 4 2 1 no invitation to gmail away. if you want one, leave a comment.

i’ll give away the invitations to the four out of the first ten to comment which give me the best cause to give ’em a gmail-invitation. so be creative and dont just write “i want a gmail invitation!!”. make me laugh and i’ll give you an invitation!

look who’s got himself in trouble!

2720563 047E477C74jan-o-plastic (and his photoshopping monkeys and fran) made a funny little calendar (i wrote a post about it some time ago) with members of the swiss parliament. now mrs ruth metzler thinks she’s more important than all the other stuff that is going on in the world now (christmas and new years eve are just wee bits among it) and sends piece a cease and desist letter to take down the “offending image” (which has been mirrored already)although one can be different opinions on how the image is of artistic value different questions spring to mind:

  • is satirical use of an image of a – former – public person not allowed?
  • does mr metzler not want to see his wife naked and thus wants to take the image down.
  • what about artistic freedom?
  • is it ok that piece took the picture down/masked it?
  • is mrs metzlers book selling so bad, that she needs publicity?

if you’re a law geek and have an opinion or some help for piece, send him a message or summink.

sad but true

<cite>

Why are you getting all worked up about fifty thousand people dying from an earthquake? Every single day 25,000 children die from easily preventable diseases. Every single day 24,000 people die from hunger. Do they not count?

Natural disasters happen. We can’t prevent them, and ultimately they kill very few people. Hunger and disease problems in developing countries? That one is directly our fault. We literally created that catastrophe with our aggressive foreign policies, thus we ignore it. If you want to actually help the world, don’t waste your money on Sri Lanka. Focus on curing poverty and stopping our first world governments from continually kicking down any nation that tries to climb out of that poverty.

</cite>

[via shannon, adapted with links]

read the text above again and step back a bit before flaming me or shannon! you must get the point.

it’s extremely sad for each and every person that had to die in south-east-asia or lost someone there. it’s a terrible way of dying.

but do all the newspapers make an as big fuss as they do over the people that die of hunger in africa or anywhere else in the third world? no, they dont. that’s my point. go and change the world where you can, don’t change it where you cannot.

hilarious flash

i remember that i saw this flash linked somewhere, but i cannot remember where. yesterday evening i played it so many times that the boyfriend of my flatmate asked me if i’m insane.

but only until i showed him what i watched, then he nearly spurted his glass of milk through his nose.

if you want to see a poor hilarious guy performing in front of his webcam then you must watch this flash movie: numanuma.swf (4.5mb .swf-file). but beware, it’s mean, loud and addictive!

don’t wonder about the strange intro-screen, it’s a modified version of the original file not done by me, just mirrored on this server. sit through the intro, crank up your speakers and laugh!

a little challenge for you [2nd update]

Penguinjumptoday was a reeeealy slow day at work, so i was catching up with the posts on boingboing.net. while checking out the entries on the latest web-zen post i found this marvelous penguin game, a holiday greeting from macromedia.com. it seams that i’ve been really lucky, because managed to impress the “judges”, i made 29.4 points.

can you beat me? leave a comment!

[via boingboing]

update: i should have practiced more!

all those beat me!

Penguin2sigi at 08.56 in the morning

Penguinjump-1raphael, he wrote some more on penguin games on the velocite-blog.

arni, he posted his picture on flickr.

my sister would have been the fastest to respond, but needs some practice :-) keep going!

2nd update: markus and leo have a wee fight over their result over at flickr…

recommended reading

my mother recently gave me schotts sammelsurium, a very funny book.

in case you want to be a brilliant conversation-partner at your next diner party i recommend that you get that book. it’s a overly extensive list of things one should know. things to know like: the thickness of ice needed to carry you, a car or a lorry, how to tie a sari, a list of european cities with metro, some shakespearean curses, the longest word in english and other stuff to know. it’s a fabulous reading and you should get is asap :-)

oh, and there is also an english version…

ps: ecto now has a nice amazon-search included (and can be yours for 30% less until christmas)

google address book plugin

if you liked “my” address book plugin, then you might dig this script posted on osxhints.com.

it enables you do do a quick google-lookup of any person in your address book, with a single click on the phonenumber of the desired person. (and can easily be adapted for other search engines, which might in the end enable me to throw together a “look-up-person-on-tel.search.ch-and-merge-info-with-already-in-addressbook”-script. but that’s another story for another day.

good night.

[via osxhints.com]