MacOS X Yosemite and high WindowServer CPU usage – Nitai

Here’s a “life saver” article on how to fix the high window server usage on Macs after installing Mac OS X 10.10 “Yosemite”. The trick is to find the transparency setting in the general preferences and turn it all the way down:

MacOS X Yosemite and high WindowServer CPU usage – Nitai.

By default the “Reduce transparency” checkbox is not checked, which results in the “Window Server” process to max out CPU usage – clearly poor engineering as it means that the Mac OS X graphic user interface hogs as much CPU power as it can get, thus effectively rendering the machine unusable to the point, where you might want to ditch Yosemite. What that tells those users who depend on the accessibility settings – I leave that to your own reasoning…. Here’s to hoping that Apple will address the issue in an update – and that this update lands asap. After you’ve followed the instructions in the article, your Mac will return to being a  usable machine.

(Thanks to Dietmar Liehr in that case, who brought this article to my attention as I was indeed in the process of running a full backup, wiping out disk contents  and going back to Maverick…)

Everything Is Broken — The Message — Medium

So yes, the geeks and the executives and the agents and the military have fucked the world. But in the end, it’s the job of the people, working together, to unfuck it.

via Everything Is Broken — The Message — Medium.

Aw man – the most clever “blurb” of writing I’ve come across in a loooong time!!

My 2 cents and paraphrase of above would be:

Most of what’s been dubbed “conspiracy theories” is the combined effects of bad engineering and people exploiting those weaknesses in the technological realm in order to save their own butts. As a person, who has been working in the IT/C industry for 25 years myself in varying positions and having a thorough enough in-depth look into things to understand how they work – or don’t, more often than not – I can attest to everything the article says. You can’t even call out companies on the bullshit they produce, because it would violate their “trade secrets” and other fancy words invented to thinly disguise blatant ignorance married to insane schedules and deadlines (programmers/engineers often love their work, but never get the resources needed to come up with reliable, dependable solutions to any given task.) The headline “Everything Is Broken” is not an exaggeration at all, telling from my own experiences.

What separates me a little from mere conspiracy thinking is the experience that things aren’t meant to be this way from the get-go, at least not in the industries I have been a part of. But one thing leads to another, one jerk finds the next – bigger – jerk and a snowballing effect sets in. Everything may be broken – but it doesn’t have to remain broken. Where do we start? With each and everyone of us, constantly questioning our choices as to whether or not they make good sense, are meaningful and whether or not they harm the environment or other people. It starts with your daily cuppa Joe and goes on to what you’re wearing. In the world of computers: Downsizing and keeping distractions and gadgets at a minimum. I’m not anti-progress all of a sudden. But it should be progress that’s in the best interest of the consumers, not in the interest of corporations. We have to get them back to where they started, which is: Make their utmost effort to serve US, not themselves!

Ein Besuch an der Uni

AUS.geMUSTERt!

Wot Eva.

Also – da konnte ich nicht widerstehen und hab’ mich im AppleStore über eins der dortigen Geräte zu einem “feiste-Fratzen”-Selfie hinreissen lassen! Das Unbehagen steht mir aber nach Rückmeldung einiger aufmerksamer Damen doch mehr oder weniger deutlich ins Gesicht geschrieben und so steht wohl zu befürchten, dass ich als Social-Media-“Hu-Meme” nur bedingte Tauglichkeit mitbringe. Aber wer weiß – vielleicht kann ich mir das Facebook-typische “Ich bin toll, mein Leben ist ein einziger Traum, ich bin geil und erfolgreich”-Gesicht ja doch noch antrainieren. Über die Farbwahl meiner Garderobe werde ich möglicherweise dann auch nochmal nachdenken müssen.

Na, wie auch immer – der Anlass war ja weitaus ernsterer, wegweisender, visionärer Natur möchte man fast sagen: Ich hatte mich – ausgerechnet am Rosenmontag *facepalm*, *eye roll* – per öffentlichem Nahverkehrsmittel, das in München und drumherum “S-Bahn” heißt, in die vor Narren und Närrinen tobende – nicht wirklich…. – Innenstadt begeben…

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Elance – Getting Started

I’m a new registree on Elance.com and in the process of completing and polishing my profile there. Took one of their tests this morning and was mildly … uhm… irritated over some of the suggested translations. Are they sure this is how things are being said correctly in my native tongue? Or rather: Have they used a native speaker for those translations? I can’t help, but wonder. Anyway… this is how I scored. #self-flattery – yeah, guilty.

Some CSS Adjustments

Been tinkering with adjustments to images floating to the right in content sections. They are now supposed to be vertically aligned with topmost navigation items (roughly) and overflow is set to ‘visible’. For non-tech readers: Any image appearing on the right is now meant to be roughly aligned with the content above and not supposed to be cropped (which it was before).

It’s kind of fun to tinker with these things 😉

Bhutan: Passen tausend Touristen in ein Tigernest? – Reise – FAZ

Ein sagenhaft toll geschriebener Reisebericht. Blumig und doch potent, respektvoll, aber auch durchschauend. Ich bin platt. Schon lange keinen so guten Text mehr gelesen….

Bhutan: Passen tausend Touristen in ein Tigernest? – Reise – FAZ.

Instant Gratification? Anyone? | wesboundmusic

Instant Gratification? Anyone? | wesboundmusic.

Elance – e-Working

Remembered this e-working platform elance.com from a while ago. I think, I’ll go and check, whether there might be something suitable for me, while bearing in mind that I can work only 3 hours per day max for the time being. Maybe there’s something of minor length and effort, which I have matching qualifications for. It’s worth a look (and maybe worth a try, too).

“Meat” by Terry Bisson

I’m thinking of registering for an academic program teaching fictional interpretation. Here’s a little snippet I did a while ago. Original sci-fi short by Terry Bisson, translation into the German by my modest self.

Project Westbound

Recently, I found this little Sci-Fi story on Google Plus and that reminded me of my later teen days, when I’d passionately immerse myself in the stories of Isaac Asimov, Stanislav Lem and the likes and kept absorbing their way out ideas.Terry Bisson’s ‘Meat’ is in a class of its own IMHO.

Upon having finished his short story, I would have loved to share it with other readers, in particular peer German G-plussers and also distribute it via Facebook. So I went ahead and contacted Mr. Bisson himself and I’m pleased to report that he gave me a go on this. So here it is: My translation into the German of Terry Bisson‘ short story ‘Meat’.

Sie sind aus Fleisch

“Sie sind aus Fleisch.”

“Fleisch?”

“Fleisch, ja. Sie sind aus Fleisch.”

“Fleisch?”

“Zweifellos. Wir haben mehrere Exemplare von verschiedenen Teilen des Planeten aufgelesen, sie an Bord unserer Raumschiffe genommen…

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Site relocation largely completed!

For the past few days, I have reconfigured my domain nieke.de in order to run it as a wordpress multisite or ‘network‘ as they call it. This means, I get to use my blogs previously – and still simultaneously – hosted on wordpress.com on my own domain nieke.de This was basically a dress rehearsal for the consideration of (commercially) offering my expertise to other parties. I’m not all sure as to the latter yet, as the effort that went into this was not a small one (at least not initially). And the more activity, the more these sites will come under attack from spammers and robots and botnets and whatnot.

However, for now I’m pleased to find that moving content and adjusting all settings went fairly seemless. All content including media (images, videos, audio) is available, all plugins required to run embedded media are working as well. I’m impressed with how robust and well supported this platform is. My next steps will be to connect the bulk of my social media hangouts to my blogs, so that I get to populate content there from once central location/web nucleus, which is – my wordpress ‘network’. 🙂 I also plan on incorporating and using email lists for semi-regular ‘news blasts’ as well as setting up events and – in the far future – my own download store for music. (that is not set in stone, yet, it’s merely a thought for now). Again: All this follows the idea of optimizing communication as in: Post once, read ‘everywhere’.

Wish me luck! 🙂 And if you happen upon any remaining errors, feel free to drop me a line 😉
Have a great day,

w.