This is a book for fans only.

It is about the working methods of Agatha Christie, based on a large number of notebooks found in her house, which she is known to have used for noting ideas, outlining plots etc.

It discusses her methods, and some time line questions about when certain stories were written. But after a short while it becomes rather repetitive in the sense that her working method didn't really change, and the book is 483 pages.

It is probably only fun to read if you remember all the referred stories, which I do only to a certain extend. But it is interesting to a dedicated fan as it gives away a few more pieces about her life - which house and which village inspired certain books, etc. Also some inconsistencies in the plots and some reuses of plots are discussed. Some of these I had noticed and I like to see them discussed. Others I had not noticed and now they will bother me when I reread the novels Others again, exists which I have noticed but which are not discussed in the book (like how many children does Mrs. Summerhayes have?), so it is in no way a thorough analysis of her works.

It also contains two non published short stories: The original version of the 12th labour of Hercules (Cerberus), and "The Incident of the Dog's Ball". It is not surprising that the former was never printed - it is not very good and it is very political, but it does show some of her world view and is interesting in that sense.

The basic ideas of "The Incident Of The Dog's Ball" has been used in a novel, "Dumb Witness" I think. It has also been used in a short story I have already read long ago - though with a different killer from the novel - but I am not sure it it the same until I have checked. This short story is basis for the novel, according to the book. So probably it is the other short story which diverges.

I also learned something interesting. I learned that when I see an Agatha Christie movie on TV which I know from the book, and they've changed the killer - she probably did it herself. She helped reworking some of her novels for screen plays and also she wrote plays for the stage which sometimes used part of the plot from a novel. So it is the real thing - she just wrote another version for the screen, it isn't evil TV people who have ruined the novel

This is the first book in a new series by the author of the Firekeeper books.

It takes place in the real world, except the real world in this case has magic in it. However, it is not unfair like "The Buried Pyramid", where she suddenly two thirds through the book made the ancient Egyptian gods come alive. In this one, we are introduced to the magic and given an idea of the rules from the beginning. So it is more like the firekeeper world, just in our world with modern technology in it.

The key point the magic and the plot resolves about is Mahjong and old Chinese mystique and traditions. It has a bit too much tedious explanation at some points, to make sure she has explained every stupid detail some reader might point out afterward.

I still finds her writing style very catching. I enjoyed reading the book and I am certainly going the read the sequels.

This is a crime novel. The detective is called Lily Bard and the setting is the village Shakespeare in Arkansas.

We slowly get to know the village as well as the detective, the story builds up very nicely. I did spot the vital clue rather early, which might be a sign that the solution is to simple

Female main character so probably males shouldn't bother to read it. At least not those without any imagination.

I like this novel, except from a touch of prejudice against certain sexual preference, but if the author bases the plot on any personal experience whatsoever, that can be forgiven.

Skirt: Modekungen.se, top: Bon'a'parte, shirt: Monsson, tights: Falke

Last fall I bought my first UPS'es for the sequencing centre.

Two rack mountable 3000VA 2u for the servers, 2 tower 3000VA for the sequencing machine and one tower 2200VA for the cluster station. All from APC.

The 3 tower based ones were requirements from the vendor of the sequencing machines. Those for the servers was because we are in a lousy facility for the time being and we might as well protect ourselves against power glitches. All the UPS'es are much to small to run through a longer power failure.

On the servers I set up apcupsd to monitor the two rack based UPS'es.

Earlier this week my apcupsd sent me an email telling me to "Change battery NOW!" on one of those. The web status monitor said the same and there is a red lamp glowing on the UPS.

Since this is my first UPS, I took a probably very naive approach to this. I thought that since this equipment is still under warranty, our vendor would send us a replacement for the faulty battery. This turned out not to be the case.

Our vendor sent us to the manufacturer. When I expressed the thought that it had been a lot more convenient for us if they could handle it themselves, they let us understand that APC has chosen this service model and the vendor was not allowed to do it. While I am not in a position to verify the truth of this statement, I have no reason to doubt it either.

I was able to open a support case through APC's web page. However, it did not get me a new battery.

Supposedly, to get a new battery, I have to do a test to find out if it is the battery or the UPS. Sounds reasonable, except the only way to find out is to run a so called manual calibration, which means running the UPS on battery with a load of at least 30% until the battery is empty. And the load crashes.

I can't really do that to my servers or storage. So, I'll have to magic some alternative load into being. Further, it is complicated by kit and science IT having attached their network equipment to my UPS, so I'll also have to find a place to plug in 4 or 5 switches meanwhile.

My first thought was electric kettles. But they stop after a few minutes. Smart people on my irc channel suggested I leave the lid open and just refill them if they run dry. But I don't like boiling water in my server room... The APC support guy who's week I've ruined, later suggested a heater or halogen lights. I don't have either - I am not going to bring my private home appliances in on the commuter train from Slagelse in order to be able to do my job - and I would need to cut the power chord and attach a plug that would go into the UPS. I don't even know it that is legal to do, and I cannot understand that such a weird Micky Mouse procedure should be required of every single UPS owner.

APC claims that I am supposed to do this anyway as maintenance every 6 month. Otherwise the UPS cannot know exactly how much time is left on the battery.

So, I thought that others would have had to run into this problem before, and asked around a bit. The IT guys I talked to certainly does not bother to do this kind of test. They just buy new batteries when they spot a UPS with a red lamp. They don't care if the UPS knows how much time is left on the battery, and neither do I. And we really don't have man power to fuss about every single UPS twice a year.

I also talked to some nice people from APC in Denmark who were much more understanding and very service minded, but the support guy told me afterwards that their suggestions would only work for larger systems, not our small UPS.

APC will not send me a new battery because they do not know whether it is the battery or the UPS that is faulty. I can respect that, and I would have done their trouble shooting if there had been any clean well described standard, non clown, non lamp/microwave/heater procedure I could follow - preferably without down time. But I can not respect that they send me out on a quest like that.

In my view it is their responsibility to make their UPS in a way so it can send a clear error message in the form of a blinking lamp, an alarm sound, some proprietary software monitoring program, whatever, but something clean and well defined. It is not my responsibility as a UPS owner to have a standby non critical load I can crash for them.

So, the "solution" is that we buy a new battery despite the fact that the product is under warranty. That is probably what they wanted anyway, to get out of their warranty obligation. We will just have to budget with that in the future and not bothering with APC support. (Or finding a different UPS manufacturer). We are probably to them what PC owners are to the large hardware manufacturers. Small and insignificant.

But I was wondering about other people's solutions to this.

Does anyone really do a UPS battery calibration every 6 months? Do people buy a couple of extra UPS'es to use in maintenance windows? Is it good for a UPS to stand by with little or no load most of the time, and will it then work when you need it?

We normally don't do down time at all if we can avoid it. We have people working at all hours and computers working 24/7, and we're not filthy rich. That combination seems to surprise the hardware vendors every time.

New vintage from today: Rika silk top and floral Doc Martens

Today's outfit - and our new Corona lamp in the background. Not sure if it is a success. It is kind of cool but not really practical....

Jeans from Acne, top from H&M, t-shirt from paulkidby.com, amber necklace from my grandmom, second hand blazer. Belt from Monki, old old heartshaped earrings.

This is a book with 11 short stories by a Greek author who grew up in Alexandria.

I bought it 4 years ago when I was in Egypt for the Solar Eclipse, and also was on a one day trip to Alexandria.

I went to the book store near our Hotel in Cairo and looked for fiction by Egyptian authors (translated into English), well knowing that I wouldn't find much. There is not much tradition of writing novels in that area.

I found two books I wanted to take home - among a total choice of perhaps 10, must by one author. One of them was by a "real" Egyptian author. I read that long ago and I haven't written about it, but it was a kind of a depressive book in a sinister tone.

This one, by a Greek Alexandrian is different. It describes in beautiful pictures how Alexandria used to be, by describing the story of selected people, selected things they did. things he remembers that draws a picture of the old, international Alexandria, and how things changed.

I recommend reading this book - but I think I recommend going to Alexandria first. Having been there makes it much more alive.

Problem:

Tivoli client on Linux gives me this error message in the logs when it comes across a file with a Danish æ ø or å character generated on a non UTF-8 character set.

'file-name-with-æ-in-it' contains one or more unrecognised characters and is not valid.

Solution:

1. Install the en_US.ISO-8859-1 locale - on Debian this is done by running dpkg-reconfigure locales.
2. Insert in your /etc/init.d/dsmcad or whatever startup script for dsmcad you have: export LANG=en_US; export LC_ALL=en_US.
3. Restart dsmcad.

Explanation:

The en_US.ISO-8859-1 is a so called single byte character set (SBCS) and will thus work independent of how many actual bytes used on a character in whatever charset the file name was made with. If you use a charset with more than a single byte per character, it goes wrong as soon as you have a file name not created with that same character set. It is possible to find this on IBMs web page but they seem to assume that you know what a SBCS is and which locales that are SBCSs.

Footnote

Yes I can run Tivoli client on Debian by running alien on the RPM packages. Since I run on a 64 bit system I had to go by a 32 bit system to build the alien packages and then use some force options to install. I am not impressed. They could bother to build 64 bit RPMS for Redhat, at least. But the point is: Yes, it works.

Jeans from Acne, top and belt from Monki, t-shirt from Puma (very old), waistcoat from Stories by Rikke Mai.

This parcel from All Saints came yesterday \o/

After living in those shorts all summer they might become the fitness shorts for the next winter Mmmm.

I'm looking for a new colleague. Here is my informal version:

• You are an evil BOFH. Unix/Linux guy (M/F), goes without saying.
• Or a Mad Scientist who laugh in the face of danger.
• Or someone who run 5 km in 20 minutes.
• Or a good coffee machine fixer.
• Or the organizer of Roborally tournaments.
• Or a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is.
• Or all of the above.
• You like science.
• You like to learn, to find out how things work, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
• You are not William Shattner (Sorry, William). If you are Spock, we can talk...
• You don't give up without a fight.
• You insist on having fun and taking responsibility, no matter the odds.

See the formal qualifications here: http://www.it-jobbank.dk/da/job--bioinformatiker-system-administrator--50263402.job (in Danish. I think we would actually hire someone with limited Danish if best qualified).

Old long sleeved T from Puma, vest from Rikke-Mai, shorts from H&M Fashion against AIDS, tights from H&M, belt from Bon'a'parte, home made necklace.

Parrot top from Topshop, basic top from Bon'a'parte, scarf from Roskilde festival, shirt from Monsoon, cardi from Kaffe, shorts from H&M fashion against AIDS, belt from Bon'a'parte (I think), tights from Falke, shoes from a Chinese shop near Nørreport. Bag from Bon'a'parte, bracelet from H&M for men (modified), watch from Casio Baby-G.

Following Tommy and Tuppence detective story references again, I found this one, even in a Danish translation.

In short: Cute little book.

The longer version:

These curious little stories takes place in about 1901 and fingerprints etc. is not yet in use by the police, so one has to think in more simple terms to solve the mysteries.

Basically, and old man in a tea restaurant figures out mysteries and tells about them to a female journalist, while tying knots on a piece of string. It was sometimes possible for me to guess where he was going, but not always.

It is not a mystery (!) that these stories are nowhere nearly as famous as Sherlock Holmes, or Agatha Christie for that matter. Still, for such very early crime stories, I think they are of interest.

Cosy and warm crime story, in an Agatha Christie like way. A bit like Tommy and Tuppence. Elderly couple, she is a crime solving mind, he helps out a bit. Mostly about things going on in the local community.

I might read more of these, since I am done with all the Agatha Christie books ever written...

OK I should get more light, and a better camera. And a face...

Rose jersey from Topshop, Bomber jacket from Topshop, Top from Asos, Leggings from Asos, Necklace from Agnes B, Belt from 2nd hand shop, skirt made from old Repeat dress, Boots from Doc Martens.

This is the second book about Opal the glass magician. Genre: Fantasy.

Opal has to prove that Ulrick and Devlen has switched souls, but the master magicians find it hard to believe, and there are also politics involved. However, Opal has a good friend in Janco, and Quartz the horse, and then there is Kade the Stormdancer...

Recommended, but start from the beginning with the Yelena books (Poison Study, Magic Study, Fire Study) and the first Open book (Storm Glass).

The main character is female and perhaps the reader should also be. I wouldn't know - I always read as a female.

Just discovered the brand "Slow & Steady Wins the Race, and these wedge sandals sold at Opening Ceremony:

http://www.openingceremony.us/products.asp?menuid=2&catid=16&subcatid=84&productid=12350

But it looks like not many shops sell it in Europe...
http://www.slowandsteadywinstherace.com/

So much nice atuff to resonable prices.

http://www.fredflare.com/customer/product.php?productid=4641&cat=283&page=13

Nice stuff to reasonable prices. Owl ring. Bunny ring. Stone wrap bracelet. Braided mosaic bead cuff. Hnged owl necklace. Beaded Zanzibar bib necklace. Want them all

Yes! Easter break made me time for reading another fantasy book. Another one bought due to having a wolf on the cover

This is the first in a series which is continued from another series, consisting of the books "Moon Called", "Blood Bound", "Iron Called" which I shall also need to read some time. Perhaps I should soon remember to create an Amazon wish list...

It has werewolves in it and it is well written and mostly consistent, given the world it is set in. It takes place in today's world, with cars, mobile phones, planes, cities, and but we need to accept the premise that our world has werewolves in it. And other creatures, too...

Main character is female.

Recommended!

This book is a description of one of Agatha Christie's archeology expeditions to Syria with her second husband, Max Mallowan.

It is a fascinating book because so many details about the way they lived shines through, and because it describes a middle East as it was a long, long time ago. How they travel there, the very different local people they employ, the attitude they meet in the locals. The problems they run into, that wouldn't be a problem in England, but also the things that are not a problem out there which would certainly have been back home.

I had to read it a little bit at a time because in a way, it is very concentrated. But it has some wonderful descriptions of people's personalities,..

I once read Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook Hiss Wife for a Hat". I was fascinated and a bit frightened by all the weird neurological diseases one can have that I'd never heard of before.

This book is not so frightening, the cases are more "normal" I think. It was harder to get through than the "hat". He describes some interesting fates, but either he gets more technical, or the cases are just less extraordinary. He lets himself get quite far away from the stories sometimes, I think (perhaps I shouldn't read the foot notes).

The one about Tourette's Syndrome was interesting. But perhaps I was just impatient to get to what I really bought the book for: The last story, the story the book is named after, "An Anthropologist on Mars".

It is about Temple Grandin who we can put into the box labeled "high functioning autist".

The author describes spending a few days with her, interviewing her and going places with her, seeing livestock handling systems she has designed etc.

She has been highly autistic in her childhood. She still shows autistic traits - walks a bit oddly, she talks for a long time - on topic - and it doesn't occur to her to offer him coffee until he asks. She lives alone. She has a squeeze machine in her bedroom to fulfill a need for physical pressure that she cannot get through hugging people. The title stems from how she feels when she observes other people's complex emotions and interactions, trying to interpret it without the intuitive understanding "normal" people supposedly have. Her life mostly consists of her work.

She has a PhD and a very successful career in designing animal handling facilities for farms, slaughterhouses etc. She is good with cows. She understands them, she cares for them. Much easier than with people, and she is doing a lot for them through her work. "With farm animals, I feel their behaviour. With primates I intellectually understand their interactions.", she says.

      _ mm_
     m     m
 w  m  U U  m  w
w w   \ ~ /   w w
w  w         w  w
w   \       /   w
  w  .......  w
    /       \
   /         \
  /           \
(_______________)

URL for my new blog:
http://people.binf.ku.dk/~hanne/b2evolution/blogs/

Not all posts have been imported yet but they will be sooner or later.

by Alistair Cooke

It has taken me close to a year to finish this book. It consists of a selection of Alistair Cooke's "Letter from America" Radio broadcasts from 1946-2004.

It's not that it isn't interesting. It is. And some of it is quite catching. I was very touched by the one about the murder of Bobby Kennedy.

I think my problem is that I know too few of the persons or places he writes about so it's too hard work to understand what is going on. Even his British reference frame is only partly familiar to me. So after 2 or 3 chapters I don't want to read anymore. I don't long for the next chapter like I would in many other books. I've had information enough for one day..

But I did learn a lot from this book.