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La mer, les pluies, le besoin, le désir, la lutte contre la mort, voila ce qui nous réunit tous.

—Albert Camus

Сочинение Аэропорт

Все аэропорты похожи друг на друга. Поэтому когда я смотрел на сегодняшнюю фотографию, я не очень внимательно смотрел. На фотографии мы видим через окна проходы и взлётную полосу. Сзади видим буксируемый самолёт, наверное типа DC-9. Обычная сцена во всех аэропортах. Но при первом взгляде я даже не заметил, что на земле лежит снег. Колёса самолёта оставляли следы на снегу.

Если честно, первое о чём я подумал, когда я увидел фотографию, это как неудобно мне было в самолёте когда я летел в последний раз. Я три года не летал и думал, что мне снова будет интересно, но нет. Место около сидения было ещё меньше, и я больше не привык быть среди большой группы людей. Но на самом деле было хорошо наконец встретить свою семью!

Snow on Naxos, January 2022

Snowed in olive trees on Naxos, January 2022

In January 2022 there was an exceptional amount of snow on Naxos. I spent four wonderful days at home, going for walks at least twice a day. I didn't venture out far, certainly didn't try to drive anywhere. There were blocked roads all over and some road damage in the mountains.

But even around the village, the scenery was quite nice and especially a nice change for me. If you live in a more northern place, this will of course be quite normal to you. On the other hand, if you like to have a look at pictures of snowed in olive trees, here is a small gallery of fotos

If you want a good looking blog, you either need to know CSS or have really great friends. Thank you segun!

RUN BSD

RUNBSD sticker on my laptop in the "klik" cafe

Some time ago I came across this cool site called RUN BSD that promotes the various BSD operating systems by giving out free stickers. Partially I guess it is a sign of the times, as less people are travelling to computer conventions and giving/getting stickers there. But for me, the last years not travelling much anyway, this was a great find. I signed up... and got some stickers a few weeks ago (with the usual long postal run times here).

I like the design and I think it fits well on my "new" thinkpad. Also went to work with mauro in the "klik" cafe in town, first time since forever. Perfect time to grab a pic of the sticker.

So, thank you Mischa and Roman (and whoever else helps with this)! Really great idea and really appreciated!

Finished Beevor's Stalingrad. Do I see this right, in the end he gives us the colour of each fart of any captured german general. But he totally forgets to mention the ca. 10k german holdouts in cellars and sewers, who had to be fought and dug out for a month after the official surrender of the north "Kessel"?

Сочинение о фотографии

На прошлом уроке моя учительница мне послала две фотографии. Она снимала их у моря в день, когда на наш остров пришла непогода по имени "Элпис".

Как видно по фотографиям, дул сильный северный ветер. Волны бились о скалы. Остров Парос казался далёким и перед ним море взбудораженное, у волн были белые гребни. Между тёмных облаков только маленькие проблески голубого неба приветствовали нас. Было впечатление, что плыть на соседний остров было невозможно.

Фотографии напомнили мне сцену в книге "Алые паруса", где Лонгрень гуляет у моря во время бури. И это напомнило мне, что ещё надо дочитать эту книгу до конца!

The Anniversary of the End

Today rk heard in one of her favorite radio shows a feature about the anniversary of the end of the battle of Stalingrad. As I've been listening to an audiobook of Beevor's book about Stalingrad, and as I've been reading up about the topic lately for some time (in a reawakened interest in history), she mentioned it to me. Indeed, on the 2nd of February, the remaining German formations in the northern "Kessel" formally capitulated, thus marking the official end of that battle.

Interesting enough, I've never thought about it being the anniversary of the end of the battle. Even though I obviously have a rough idea about the date frame of the event. And even though obviously that's the thing to remember: First, because the start cannot really be pinned down to a single date, and second, because the end of that most gruesome episode in the abyss of human history is what we should remember.

"Э, Ассоль. -- говорил Лонгрень, -- разве они умеют любить? Надо уметь любить, а этого-то они не могут."

—Александр Степанович Грин: Алые паруса

Making bad choices and new installs

There was a time

For a short while, I didn't have a website at all. That was quite a change, since I had a website for about 25 years. I reinstalled my server, now there wasn't anything anymore. That's how it goes.

But now there will be a site again. It will be very minimal, which is nice, it's kind of like moving back to the start. My first website was one page, everything on that one page. I'm not going that far back, but maybe I'll manage to go back to when my weblog was just a little collection of daily thoughts.

The old content... right now I think that I won't bring it back. Time to let the past be the past. It's all playing sandcastles with time and entropy anyway.