Reuben Honigwachs' Blog

Bitter about missing sync in Doggcatcher

2012-01-14T15:25:00.003+01:00

I'm a huge radio production fan and nowadays I listen to podcasts rather than live radio. A lot of special interest stuff, but also very general stuff such as the daily news. On the go, at work, at home. Managing new/listened episodes with approx. 20 steady subscriptions and continuously trialling an additional group of 10 podcasts by subscribing/unsubscribing is a heck of a job on two Android devices and two PCs... and quite frank a pain in the a**.

Doggcatcher is currently the best podcatcher app for Android. It was one of my first apps. I love it and use it as my main player. But one thing I have become really bitter about is that there is a "confirmed" issue filed as 0000038 in their bug tracker from the beginning of 2009 (current public count 0001171) to integrate with Google Reader. Which would solve my above mentioned problem.

The absence of this feature and my growing frustration makes me think about reverting to the really buggy and unmaintained Google Listen or to the actually pretty decent BeyondPod. I would like to see gPodder and gpodder.net coming to Android - that would be a blast. Maybe I would even trade in the convenience of Google Reader for that, since the Web Services API 1,2,3 of gPodder.net has position markers. Maybe even have them all: Doggcatcher, gpodder, gpodder.net (also already filed in 2010 as 0000550).

Now, you will find a bit of venting about this on the Doggcatcher forums as well. And when speaking further above of "them", actually meaning the the sole developer "eric". But I just felt like formulating my individual pain :-(

Moving microblogging to G+

2011-11-20T12:10:00.001+01:00

I am still trying to sort myself with Google Plus. Yet, one thing is for sure, that everything of the microblogging character is going to land over there. The labels have been deleted, therefore no specific RSS feeds will exist for "microblog" and "blog".

https://plus.google.com/u/0/106936676900059375926/posts

Bryce Lawrence

2011-10-09T12:28:00.000+02:00

The 2011 Rugby World Cup summed up for South Africa: http://www.google.com/search?q=bryce+lawrence&tbm=nws

Sybil Phoenix

2011-10-08T00:00:00.002+02:00

Brilliant production, moving story. BBC World Service, The Listening Post: Sybil Phoenix (mp3)

Think I have a new favourite film

2011-08-27T15:49:00.002+02:00

Twin Sitters (1994) :-) Probably needed a short period of brain-dead time, but then kind of slipped right through it.

Unconscious

2011-06-03T22:00:00.000+02:00

I'm sure, in sports, you've heard of the term "in the zone". There is a progression to that: Unconscious. What does that mean? The Jones elaborated once on this expression (at 25:32). Want to see it for real? Check out Dirk's celebration after winning the second Finals game for the Mavericks (with his injured left hand, recovering from 15 points behind). This dude is somewhere else. At least only partially in the present.

SYSK

2011-05-19T23:48:00.000+02:00

Getting fond of the good night notes ;) Here a quick one:

As a podcast addict, I simply have to hype the How Stuff Works Podcast named "Stuff You Should Know" (RSS) which I have been following for very long while and can generously recommend to anyone capable of hearing... or not.

France is named host for the 2018 Ryder Cup

2011-05-18T01:20:00.011+02:00

I was supporting the bid and therefore I am sad that in 2018 the Ryder Cup will not be hosted in Germany. I did not have much time to dig in on the media echo, yet, but just my 0,02 EUR before heading to bed on the topic... and warm congratulations to France. Well deserved.

2020 would be in the US. 2022 in GB/I, 2024 going back to the US. And next to the year 2018, 2026 would most likely be the next chance for mainland Europe to receive the honour of hosting this prestigious event. Facing this long time, you would think the candidates would gear up, fight hard and do everything in its power to impress the Bid Committee and receive this one. Which France did. Let alone the other bidding countries, let's just compare a few things between France and Germany.

Race To Dubai Rankings (May 17th, 2011)

Rank	Player Name	Prize Money	Rank	Player Name	Prize Money
3	KAYMER Martin	€ 1086206
			24	BOURDY Grégory	€ 301910
			25	HAVRET Grégory	€ 300221
			28	JACQUELIN Raphaël	€ 290529
			43	GONNET Jean-Baptiste	€ 227812
			78	WATTEL Romain	€ 122318
			122	DUBUISSON Victor	€ 67428
125	SIEM Marcel	€ 64838
			158	CÉVAËR Christian	€ 42045
			169	KALEKA Alexandre	€ 34208
			181	RIU Victor	€ 27050
			221	QUESNE Julien	€ 10650
			226	DELAMONTAGNE François	€ 9500
227	BUHL Sebastian	€ 9300
			250	GUERRIER Julien	€ 6100
			252	BILLOT Jean-Nicolas	€ 5400
			181	HEBERT Benjamin	€ 5000
	5 Players	€ 1281037		15 Players	€ 1512138

You get the picture and can imagine how things currently look like on the Challenge Tour.

European Tour Tournaments (2011)

Munich	BMW International Open	€ 2000000	Lumbres	SAINT-OMER OPEN	€ 600000
			Paris	Alstom Open de France	€ 3000000
			Paris	The Vivendi Trophy	€ 1150000
	1 Tournament	€ 2000000		3 Tournaments	€ 4750000

Please note that France hosts five Tournaments of the Challenge Tour and Germany none (as in zero).

Courses

Here for me lies the crux of the matter. Le Golf National has been tested with great tournaments and has proven to have the proper dramatic design needed within a Ryder Cup. It still has a lot of space for improvements and tweaks, if needed. The German course is still in construction schedule, though.

Le Golf National is right outside of Paris with 22km driving distance to Paris-Orly and 45km to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, (25km to Gare du Nord for the Eurostar). The planned site of the German course would've been 80km away from the airport. And with all due respect to the people living in Ingolstadt, Manching, and Neuburg: It simply does not compare to Paris.

Support

I do not follow French mainstream media, so I cannot make a comparison here. Within the German golf community the support was strong, although I wouldn't say enormous, but in mainstream media the bid was entirely ignored. I do not feel disappointed about this fact, since you only occasionally hear about golf on a side note on sports pages, but it surely reflects the current state of Golf in Germany.

All in all I'd say Germany can wait, but will it be able to run for 2026? I personally think the chances are dim. Spain was already knocking on the door, trying to make sure Seve got his due. The Swedes, who are almost a traditional golfing nation, have retracted from this race early, probably to ante up on the next one. And Portugal is one of the favourite locations of the press over in GB/I, which has shown its influence on the committee this and last year. Let's see - it's Europe, we play as a team, so who cares ;-)

Do not buy International NBA League Pass

2011-02-13T22:04:00.011+01:00

Although there are alternative sources providing you with neatly cut games in high definition, as a NBA fan with a heavy schedule, I have invested in NBA League Pass Premium Season and NBA League Pass Premium Playoffs at the beginning of the season to watch games on-demand according to my schedule. I advise you to not.

After you have made that hefty investment, you now all of a sudden get adverts in every time-out and break which you cannot skip - even the volume control is blocked during that time. The mobile app (released for android far into the season) does not provide reasonable quality when watching full games.

I will update this as soon as things change.

Update 2011-02-13: I have found others are annoyed, too (facebook, NBA FanVoice, facebook, twitter, twitter)

Update 2011-02-16: I have received notice from support that "Advertisements are now only served a limited number of times per day.". After quickly checking a few time-outs, I can confirm that the unskippable ads have been ditched. I congratulate the NBA or NeuLion for reacting this quickly and keeping the product good and can only hope it stays this way.

All Day

2010-11-20T06:18:00.002+01:00

For more than half a decade I have been wondering when the visualisation "GOOM: what a GOOM!" will start making sense to me. At last it did with Gillis' new Tokyo-destroying monster called All Day.

Dry Cleaners

2010-11-07T13:56:00.004+01:00

Things have been quiet here, and it might as well continue being this way. Just a short tip in the category of "lessons learned" to go:

Schedule your visits to the dry cleaners according to the weather forecast ;)

All focus

2010-05-15T11:26:00.005+02:00

So, the Celtics finish off the Cavaliers 4-2. (Do not read, if your not interested in the NBA ;))

At first I want to say how impressed I am by the concentration, focus, and confidence the Celtics have proven - and send out special kudos to Kevin Garnett. In the middle of the season large parts of the media have said the Celtics are over and have to be reset and restructured. A few are still saying the Cavs have rather lost the series rather than the Celtics have won it. I say that never happens - a team always wins a match. But the Cavs have proven to be weaker than during their outstanding season performance.

Next to all the technical reasons that have been brought up, I think the Cavaliers have tried to force on a game face; bring the "proper playoff attitude" to the floor; all serious. It didn't fit and went the wrong way. Up to a point where even the fans were slightly intimidated and silenced by the tension on the court. And although I do not agree a lot with Mark Jackson's commentary, he resonates my opinion.

Now, stupidly, I like to draw life lessons out of my humble sports spectatorship, and I am going to do it again. The Cavs and especially LeBron James have been playful and loose throughout the season. Well concentrated, of course, but with a go-easy attitude. All of a sudden they brought in this super-serious focus, no smiles, certainly forced. It works well for the Celtics and their mature maestros, namely Garnett, Pierce, and Allen.

But if it doesn't work for you, leave it. If you do not know what's going on and repeatedly fail fixing it - try and find your natural rhythm. If you need a light-hearted approach to perform best, you need a light-hearted approach to perform best.

Schwartzel gains

2010-04-07T17:12:00.001+02:00

Just finished off the current Race To Dubai Show (European Tour Podcast) in my car and I was backed up by Robert Lee, who also puts Schwartzel up for a win.

Easter Nutrition

2010-04-02T22:10:00.001+02:00

Ahhh, a bright and beautiful Easter week-end to begin with. Went out on an early round and substituted artificial pseudo energy foods with a mix of my own:

Worked out very well (with water and coffee). Forgot to cut in some apples and pears - but had some dried dates for those monosaccharides with me. For the more sapping and longer sessions I will probably have to wrap up a bit of chicken, too. But I have to watch the weight-benefit-ratio carefully, since I am all carry bag now.

PS: I staved off the hunger with some Cape Malay Pickled Fish at my parents' later in the day. Hmmm.

Announcing the Masters 2010 Winner

2010-03-31T18:43:00.001+02:00

OK, just for the record. I announce either Padraig Harrington, Martin Kaymer, Fred Couples, Retief Goosen, Charl Schwartzel, Brandt Snedeker, Tiger Woods, or Ernie Els to win at the US Masters 2010. If I had to pick one of these eight: Charl Schwartzel.

Form Factor

2010-03-28T19:25:00.004+02:00

Just ran uptime on my n800: 267 days. And the last I know of, it was powered down because I forgot to charge it in time.

I use it heavily(!) everyday. To listen to online radio in the bathroom, to tune into a podcast while cleaning up, to look up a recipe while cooking, I even occasionally pick-up a call to my SIP or XMPP account. I don't think iPad users will/can use it that way. The Apple device is too big, it will probably not be nearly as robust, it does not have things like a stand, and you cannot use with dirty or wet hands.

I use the Nokia n800 with its basic setup, so I do not want to get into the whole discussion about how Nokia strategically handled the n-series and why an open source platform is obviously superior. Instead, I simply wanted to point out, that from my experience a simple, cheap, and robust device will be more successful when it comes to Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' predictions of how homes and families are going to utilize the internet in the near future.

I am not so sure why these companies are so focused on an up-scale market with things like the Surface and are still presenting these products as forerunners for how the whole world will work in the near future.

Experiment a bit yourself. Go and try using your little gadgets and smartphones with any given task in your life (and awkwardly drawing attention to yourself). Maybe you as easily come to an answer as I did: What will the kiosk owner in Mumbai use as a cash register? What will you hand over to your kid for play? What will you use during your workout?

Ubuntu 10.04 unlikes

2010-03-24T01:22:00.001+01:00

These and other things of similar nature have been well discussed already and are causing some distress throughout the internet. But I just wanted to let off some steam, quickly. In Ubuntu 10.04 I do not like the fact that

the window controls have been moved
Yahoo! has been defaulted in Firefox
Closed-source technology is being pushed aggressively into the user space through Ubuntu One.

The Basketball Jones rock!

2010-03-17T23:19:00.001+01:00

I thought it might get overdose after TBJ went Pro and upped their episode rate. Although my schedule is currently hectic and I require some game-input for depth and context, I am finding time for them and enjoying every bit!

Wishy-Washy

2010-03-01T14:32:00.001+01:00

First time I tuned into adult contemporary radio in years (I don't care for live radio when driving). It had to be unobtrusive and still drown the noise of the neighboring kindergarten. Listening: Take That - Want You Back For Good.

Panic Attacks Pt. 2

2010-02-28T04:38:00.000+01:00

I reported of people going nuts about the cold weather in Germany in Panic attacks. Well, I went on holiday and after coming back the electronics of my car were malfunctioning and I had to have it towed to the garage.

All About Results

2010-01-16T01:50:00.006+01:00

Ianjamespoulter@AlanFairhurst I choose to use MBs in longer irons because of the results, 2 many people use blades when they shouldnt, all about results

Sorry Poults, as an amateur it is not always about the results. It's actually about enjoying the game. Eh ... yes ... enjoying a set of Mizuno MP 37s for some time now. By "enjoying" meaning some sort of autosuggestion. (And Ian by saying longer meaning shorter)

Expectations of a Sports Fan

2010-01-09T23:59:00.002+01:00

OK, things turned out as expected. Germany is snowed in. I'm enjoying sports on TV and really enjoyed the Hessen-Derby of the Deutsche Bank Skyliners vs. Gießen 46ers with my dad. Then the European Tour and Sunshine Tour co-sanctioned Africa Open, a true feast. Also I am watching the PGA Tour SBS Championship on Kapalua, Hawai'i.

Since the US media, the officials, and the sponsors are _really_ worried about the absence of Tiger Woods and are learning their lesson for the second time (first injury, now adultery), they are trying to "profile" the other remaining players. One of the criticisms is that the most successful players are "running around like robots" and are showing no emotions, unlike Tiger. The whole situation is not so nice for the audience measurement.

Now, obviously the angle of the media is all about stakeholders, the advertisers yada, yada, yada... but I see a valid point made there. Golf is of course all about concentration, but I also thought golf was equally about the life lessons and sportsmanship. Still, very successful players tend to drag their game face off the course to the media. And honestly, a sports fan is all about the extras: The interviews afterwards, the insight into the player's psyche.

I don't expect professional athletes to be comedians or even make a clown of themselves just for good ratings. But if you have made it this far, there is definitely some personality directly related and very relevant to your profession that has to be shown. Why not show it? And I don't mean plotting your private life publicly.

The US media is maybe pushing it a bit hard all of a sudden, but it doesn't seem to hurt. The current SBS Championship leader Lucas Glover was criticized harshly for not showing emotions after his 2009 US Open win. And I have gained the impression opening up is working well for him at the moment. I'm really enjoying his wit and entertaining qualities.

I hope other professional athletes would also get rid of their replaceable and generic vocabulary and provide an interesting conversation once in a while.

PS, absolutely unrelated: Michelle Wie's Blog, which she was successfully rocking anonymously for quite a while.

Panic attacks

2010-01-08T21:45:00.001+01:00

The media and even the government are going mental about the cold weather. I think I'll use it as an excuse for staying in this weekend.

Totem keyboard shortcuts: Useless

2010-01-03T19:00:00.005+01:00

MPlayer is of course the superior movie player on earth, and when you're used to it, everything else seems a bit odd. But the keyboard shortcuts of Totem are simply useless. Check out the README - here the highlight:

Left arrow: Go back 15 seconds
Right arrow: Go forward 60 seconds
Shift+Left arrow: Go back 5 seconds
Shift+Right arrow: Go forward 15 seconds
Ctrl+Left arrow: Go back 3 minutes
Ctrl+Right arrow: Go forward 10 minutes

Branson's House

2010-01-02T00:04:00.001+01:00

Good having different products to choose from:
Branson's House at Google
Branson's House at Microsoft