McAviti's Blog

Happiness by Chinese Stamps

Sun, 26 Oct 2025 00:14:00 +0000

When I was five years old, I had already started my collection of stamps. Stamps were more present then, the postman delivered them to our door on a daily basis, literally. So, I had my first guard book, the stamps in Austria at that time looked like this:

That summer my father visited China, 1977 a very uncommon destination for Western Europeans. We did not know much about this huge and cultural rich country, apart from a few clichés. When my father came back from his four weeks trip he had brought some stories.
And a few things.
Already then amazing things were made in China, not of microelectronics and plastics as we receive them now, but from wood and paper. Some of the “paper things” I got were remarkable sets of stamps.
They were awesome, large, colourful and artistic in a way I was not used to:

The Real Hell's Angels – Horrific Flying War Machines

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:30:00 +0000

In the shadow of the Ukraine war, where drones are dominating the battlefield as well as the media outlets, another horrible type of weapon, designed for the confrontation of superpowers, rises its head again. At least that seems the plan to revive MAD.

Read: Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 17:41:00 +0000

I got this book from a working colleague (thanks again, kst), making me curious, since I like the *movie* “The Martion” quite a lot. So, how are Weir's books?

We Were Doomed…

Sun, 20 May 2018 21:38:00 +0000

Last week i attended the We Are Developers Conference — an impressive 8000 people, really fun, really interesting. I attended mostly talks about machine learning and that stuff, since those things will keep me busy the next months, or years.

But just for the fun of it I also was at John Romero's "DOOM’s Development: A Year of Madness". It was a great speech; and although I am not much a gamer myself (o'course I played doom back '93!) I can now see why John is such an iconic figure. Loved it really. But this one talk was maybe the least one about doom, because literally every session about machine learning included some thought about the dangers of AI (artificial intelligence). People are really concerned -- are we doomed?

Read: Rise of the Machines, by Thomas Rid

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 22:43:00 +0000

When working in the area of computer science, the term "cybernetics" adheres indeed to some strange mysticism. Everybody knows that it's a branch of applied science coined by Norbert Wiener, but what it is all about remains in the dark. Of course the prefix "cyber" is ubiquitous, the background of the science remains in the dark, though.

Unfortunately this book did not much to enlighten me. It starts somewhat promsing, mentioning negative feedback loops and the tight interaction pattern between man and machine. But it goes not much further than that, regarding hard facts.
Then the book is a nice-to-read history essay about several technology chapters of US-American history. I am not completely sure what they have to do with cybernetics. For example, it's obvious, and enjoying, how the author is fascinated about cryptography and about a certain concerted cyber-attac from Russia directed at US security infrastructure that is really displayed in detail, up strange interactions of a Russian general spook and a femal FBI agent. Maybe all cyber stuff is tech stuff is cybernetics.

Read: The Truth, by Terry Pratchett

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 23:08:00 +0000

What if. What if the plain old good news paper was a cutting-edge start-up? Well, in Terry Pratchett's Discworld you can have that. The book starts in this world, where it is already well known that news can be money, but nobody came around the idea of making this a retail business. Neither did William de Worde, so far.

But then the Dwarfs started up a new technical invention, the printing press, or – more precisely – moving letters, the wonderful idea that which Johannes Gutenberg started up modern history; on earth.

Read: Slaughter House 5, by Kurt Vonnegut

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 23:49:00 +0000

I read this book back in school. i should have. Well, I did, kind of. But my memories of it were kind of scarce, so I did something i rarely do, I read it a second time. And I have to admit, now being able to make somewhat better use of the English language makes the experience much more enjoyable.

The book is an anti-war story, surely a thing that propelled its popularity when it was published first in 1969. What makes it a bit more peculiar in that genre, is that it is anti-world-war-two. This is not easy, when the point of view is the one of the allies, because common sense says that this war was necessary to fight nazism.
But still it is possible to make a statement against war in general, even in this case. The author chose an biographical setting, the survival of the massive bombing of Dresden in the last days of that war, an event that he survived as did the protagonist of the book. But read for yourself.

Read: The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett

Sun, 23 Apr 2017 22:48:00 +0000

This time we are in the middle of it. Sam Vine from the Ankh-Morpork watch is visiting Uberwald - resembling some outstanding areas in Central Europe from Bavaria to Siebenbürgen. Dominated by a subtle balance of vampires, dwarfs and werewolves there seems to be time for same changes. A new "Low King" is to be crowned, ruling the fundamental mines of the dwarfs.
But not all are happy with the proceedings and want their own storyline. But who other then the master of the Ankh Moporkh Nightwatch would be the right person to debunk all the shade-loving characters in the Uberwald creme-de-la-creme.

Seen: Arrival, by Denis Villeneuve

Sat, 11 Feb 2017 00:55:00 +0000

Being always attracted by original science fiction plots, I wanted to see that movie as early as I learned about it, which was today – better late than never. It was surely visibly and audibly impressive, even in a small theater room, and its aesthetics beyond what I expect in the genre. The cast performed in a very fine way, playing in the style on a theater stage. Settings, camera and cut backed the actors very well, being slow and giving room for their performance.
It is a slow movie, salted by fast, contrasting scenes, when the panic of mankind is shown – triggered by the movie's main topic: The arrival of aliens from outer space, or somewhen else.

Read: REAMDE, by Neal Stephenson

Wed, 18 Jan 2017 23:20:00 +0000

This book is a few years old, it was published 2011; nevertheless it covers two topics that were pretty dominant in the last year. One is islamic terrorism, unfortunatley the major topic for many people last year, and ransomware — what at least was breathtaking for some of the IT crowd. So, the plot is about an IT entrepreneur, the creator of a WoW-like MMORP game that turned into a profitable enterprise. Then there is his niece, born in and fled from Eritrea and then adopted in the United States. She is dragged into events of absurd measure: a personal crucade of a mobster against a chinese tech-gang that eventually turns into a manhunt both by and after the world's most-feared islamic terrorist.

Read: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:05:00 +0000

J.K. Rawling's Potterism I only joined with some hesitation. But only to read the books with growing enthusiasm when started at last. The books where a fine journey from a pretty innocent children story to heavy fantasy fiction. The storyline was always exciting and surprising, the ends not disappointing.

This new book is not a novel like the ones i read before but a play. It's split into a large number of scenes, so that I first though it's more like a movie script, but actually the play is performed in London. Due to its form it is read very fast, there is not much text. Still the story has density and enough substance to keep one enthralled — but not busy for many hours though.

Read: Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Wed, 24 Aug 2016 22:00:00 +0000

Subtle irony on the topic of religion and esotericism is not an easy thing. Especially when vampires are the topic.

'You mean vampirism is like… pyramid selling?' said Agnes. (p. 221)

That's one of the many gemstones to be found in this book as like in any other of the Discworld novel series I have read. For the non-native speaker these books are like a game with hidden doors — there's always the thrilling thought that you miss any number of them. Maybe a good reason to read a book once more, I'd say.

Read: The Last Continent, by Terry Pratchett

Tue, 16 Feb 2016 22:55:00 +0000

This book is kind of a jackpot for me: I like Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and I like Australia, oh sorry, I mean EcksEcksEcksEcks.¹ Reading this book, you feel the spirit of Down Under – even the Wizards are relaxed; and the guards, to Rincewind's astonishment and delight. This book is of course about loads of other topics as well, from time travel to environmental issues.

This book is to the Wizards from the Wizard, hail to the master of the footnotes.² I am long for the next one in the Discworld series, it is already on my desk. Fair dinkum, no worries.

Read: Cakes and Ale, by W. Somerset Maugham

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 23:39:00 +0000

This one was once again a recourse to old times. ‘Cakes and Ale’ was the first book in English language i bought voluntarily, at the age of about sixteen. My first attempt to read it failed already at the third page or so, I am not sure, why. So it went onto a book shelf and then moved from one flat to another.

In this new year, at last, I found it again, and soon found it intriguing after the first few pages. It has this unagitated quality of classics that makes it so pleasant to read, once one gets rid of the feeling that a story needs a lot of action to avoid boredom. The plot is well planned: The first-person storyteller, a seasoned writer (some parts of the story are autobiographic), who tells a story about a fellow colleague, named Edward Driffield, that he met as a boy and who recently has died, being maybe the last famous man of literature of the ending Victorian era.
The book tells a lot of details how people in England lived around 1900, and how society was very stiff and snobbery. Still, the author deals with delicate topics like adultery, calculating relationships and bankruptcy offence, but also with beauty and love. Although the first-person teller is mostly neutral in his portrayals, the reader gets the impressions of the emotions the protagonists produce. But never it feels awkward or artificial, the characters seem natural – and timeless.

Read: Turing's Cathedral, by George Dyson

Mon, 02 Nov 2015 01:00:00 +0000

Loving tiny little details? Then this book is right for you. George Dyson has collected a really huge pile of data, most of if personal facts of people more or less involved into the construction of first digital computers in the US. So, there is an alamanac of interesting but to some extent pointless trivia. The details of people and subplots is astonishing:

Read: Jingo, by Terry Pratchett

Tue, 07 Jul 2015 00:20:00 +0000

Nothing less than war is the main topic of the latest Discworld novel I have read. A most delicate issue, moral hazards are anywhere. This is another book of The Watch of Ankh-Mopork. The mob of the city demands war with Klatch (Discworld's Arabia), but three wise men (with mere help from others) fight war and win peace. Those three are

The Warrior: Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, head of the city watch, good-hearted but just slightly naive — he is the main character in the City Watch books.
The King: His deputy Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, his deputy and kind of natural-born King. Even more good-hearted in a very tough way.
The Politician: The Patrician Lord Havelock Vetinari, leading the city, even when not entitled so.

These three together make some kind triumvirate, a wise dictatorship. For their goals, doing the best for the people, they cannot always act prissy but in the end their way leads to the best for society with least victims.

Read: Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett

Fri, 11 Jul 2014 21:07:00 +0000

After having read some serious (nevertheless excellent) books, I return to the serious unseriousness of the Discworld. Happily so. “Hogfather” has it all what should make it one of my favourites in the series: Death (General and of Rats), Susan Sto-Helit, Wizards, Hex. Additionally a brilliant (literally) villain Assassin and a marvellous creation of Pratchett, the oh God of Hangovers.

As mentioned, although the ingredients should make it a double plus good Discworld book, it isn't for me. For me, the book is too full of all the normally good stuff, the dose is too high. There are too many spheres of high power — the Wizards of UU, Death, Hogfather (Discworld's own Santa), the Auditors, the Tooth Fairy, the Hex calculator. Normally the books get a lot from the controversy between those different magic worlds, but this time it gets confusing. It may be just me and my insufficient knowledge of subtleties of the English language, but sometimes when reading I got puzzled, e.g. which character has what power in a special scenery. And Death is a little bit TOO keen on getting the hang on humanity. The villain is just too brilliant... just wanted to write, Susan is too cool, but no, that's okay.
Anyway, I am afraid I did not get all the hints from the author, did too often not get the analogy. A reader having English as native language will be better of course.

Sat, 07 Jun 2014 08:45:00 +0000

The band biography of Pink Floyd.

Atari!

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 00:26:00 +0000

My first computer-like device was a Phillips G7000 Video Console. For that also a cartridge named "Computer Programmer" was available, and my parents bought it for my brother and me. As a kid I was unable to cope with the complexity of its Assembly language; so the cartridge with the number "9" started to be my first personal nemesis of the art of computer handling. I never learned proper Assembler.

Read: Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett

Wed, 11 Dec 2013 23:35:00 +0000

The Discworld has returned. Much is said about it, but it does not become boring. And I think it will never get. Again Pratchett centers a story around great philosophical topics of mankind: Religious stories (Golems), Politics (the inner anarchist of the commander of the watch) or minorities (or how would you call Werewolfs, especially female ones?).

The plot may be fantasy — unfortunately a point that restrains a lot of people from trying those books — but it depicts our reality and makes fun of it. The splendid Carrot, Angua and Vimes, good-looking folk, are the heroes; the less appareled and appealing Nobbs and Colon are anti-heroes, Antagonists and underdogs. That's how it works and as in many other stories the good-looking guy keeps the good-looking gal.
The tough cop stays a tough cop and the cold-blooded dictator is pleased.

Read: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Thu, 14 Nov 2013 22:53:00 +0000

This book has relationships to two books I have been reading earlier this year: It is the second one authored by Hemingway and the second classical American novel set at a World War stage. And in both cases I felt a lot of similarities. For "The Old Man and the Sea" it seems obvious, but also in Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" I felt a somewhat similar cold style of writing, a kind of objective distance, to the atrocities of war.

Read: Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 23:23:00 +0000

These guys are crazy. I mean it.

When I heard about this book I expected a cruel depiction of what happens in war. Fear, brutality, insanity, butchery. And fear, brutality, insanity, butchery it was. But very different than how I expected it. The book begins in a style that reminded me of M.A.S.H. (the movie and TV serials, I did not read the book). The absurdness of war is wrapped in sarcastic humour; the characters, whose names also serve as title headings, dominate the semi-linear narrative in a cranky way, but mostly generating sympathy from the reader, concerning the insane environment the people had been thrown into.

What Makes a Visionary?

Thu, 15 Aug 2013 10:32:00 +0000

When will I be able to make toast with my radio?

Read: The Importance of Being Ernest, a play by Oscar Wilde

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 22:57:00 +0000

Good fellow Mister Wilde would for sure have been one interesting person to talk to. He really is a master of the play on words, independent of the story line and its depth. This short play was really fun reading, although the plot is not really twisted and somewhat foreseeable. The characters are portrayed in a distinct way, and the few pages are full of sentences usable of quotes of their own, showing for example the hypocrisy of the Victorian age, but this is obvious timeless.

Read: Maskerade, by Terry Pratchett

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 23:38:00 +0000

The series must go on, this is Discworld N° 18. For the loyal DW reader this book holds no surprise. Main characters are witches Nanny and Granny, always good for surprises, as we know them. They dive into the world of opera, foreign to them as it is to me, I have to admit.

For me this was none of the outstanding stories from this author, this time the plot is even not too hard to guess. Nevertheless, great pleasure reading and I am looking for 19. And the next encounter of the three-again witches.

Personal Archeology: My Diploma Thesis

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 01:47:00 +0000

When tidying up my room today I stumbled upon an unmarked, self-burnt CD. By the looks of it, it had to be a very old one, from the time I still roamed the university in Linz. Without much hope that it still works – which CD-R is still readable after 15 to 20 years? – I put it into my drive; and voilá, the listing of its content appeared. It is a backup of my diploma thesis from 1998.

Read: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:07:00 +0000

I bought this book with mixed feelings. For me it is evident that financial help to developing countries are a mixed blessing, at least.¹ On the other hand I know how easy it is to shift polemics from one side to the other. Like ex-smokers who often fail to yield to reason.

Perkins is solemn; that is a style that is intrinsic to many Americans, for the good as well as for the bad. It makes reading interesting, but for my personal taste there were too many occasions that "would change his life", and when he depicts a dream he had in Indonesia, starring a local-branded Jesus burdened under insignia of modern industrialism, it sounds to good to not to be made-up.
The facts of the book don't need this, though. The information about Perkins' work does not sound far-fetched in my ears. It's hard to say what is true and what is not these days, maybe it was always that way. But I doubt that the average politically informed citizen in the western world guesses that development aid in the form of huge loans to underdeveloped countries is often more of a help for the donor's corporations than for the beneficiary.

Read: Dracula, by Bram Stoker

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:58:00 +0000

The vampire genre was never one I was much attracted to. I have seen no vampire movie (save Roman Polanski's great 'The Fearless Vampire Killers'), the popular TV series I love to hate and I have never read a vampire story (save their appearance in Larry Niven's 'Ringworld'). But it had to end, when I saw the paperback edition with a scene from the German movie 'Nosferatu' on the cover (yes yes, I've seen some scenes from it) in a shop.

Read: Legends, edited by Robert Silverberg

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 23:22:00 +0000

When I browse my buying history at the Amazon cartel website and go to the very first order, I see it was January 1999. I was working in Germany then, and it was my first commercial transaction on the internet. Amazon was still young, fresh and traded only books. It was easier, as well as cheaper, to get English books there; so I thought, to hell with security, I give my credit card number to this internet dealer.

Read: Debt, by David Graeber

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 23:03:00 +0000

Well, it is done. I'm through with it. I have to admit is was somewhat of a struggle, but I do not regret anything. Like mentioned in a former post, the book really has its lengths. The book keeps its promise, it gives a historical digest of debt, and the concepts around. It covers philosophical, moral and financial aspects of the very idea of debt and how it evolved all over the world from the first written form of the Sumerians to the big financial spenders that are now shaking our economical system.

Started: Debts, by David Graeber

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 22:28:00 +0000

A week ago I started reading this book; I am interested in the topic, since it is one of the topics that are central to the current crises, especially of European states. In my opinion a psychological and even philosophical issue, and David Graeber's book should give me some insights to this.

Well, today I conquered page one hundred; frankly spoken, I have to admit I am bored. not to hell, but bored. Being a concentrated reader is not my strength I have to admit, but this time I really have problems to follow the paragraphs. Of course it's a dry topic by itself, but Mr. Graeber does not make it easy for me. I do not see the necessity to investigate that deep into whether bartes has existed or not and what other scholars think about that. Nevertheless I have a strong feeling I agree a lot with the author, he argues in a reasonable way - a style I alsways look for in nonfiction. Maybe the long elaborations in the beginning are necessary indeed, for the whole building of thought and have to sink into my mind and make sense once the whole text is consumed by me.

Read: The Old Man and the Sea

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:16:00 +0000

Every other book I buy and read should be a classic; that's a rule of thumb I once started to apply on me, why exactly I really do not know: must be some kind of socialization. In advance I am not always happy with this self-regulation, but hardly did I regret afterwards to have read a classic, though.

Similar with this story. Looking for a light book, in terms of weight, not content, I found Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" in the shelf and took it simply because I did not want to wear a bag. Profanity at its best. I remembered how astonished I was when I bought the paperback edition, how thin it was since I expected this novel to be something to inflict injuries when hit on the head. But this short novel has a mere hundred pages, not reflecting the heaviness of mood in the story.

The Bee is a Trendy Animal

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:55:00 +0000

Bees gather not only pollen but also a lot of human sympathy: They are diligent, benefical, gentle - but with a certain sting. So, not only the Erste Stiftung (one of the major owners of the company I work for) has started a career as beekeeper, but also Marc Shuttleworth seems to find bees intriguing - as well as the pink bee suit of his girlfriend...

Interesting Times

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:09:00 +0000

It has been Discworld Novel #18 for me - I strictly stick to the proper sequence. I still suck the pages into the humour district of my brain, and quite often the areas of social criticism, history and science are also heavily used.

Indeed, after quite a lot of stories I read about the Discworld, one or another thing I am able to predict now; Rincewind could not really astonish me this time, too well has his character been outlined so far.

Web Recommendation: A Good Story

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Ever thought about exploring a mysterious cave? This write-up delivers a pretty good impression of the thrills of such a venture…

Web Recommendation: NASA's APOD

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:22:00 +0000

One thing I enjoy wenn I fire up my private computer is one of my plasma widgets showing the daily "astronomy picture of the day". Just today, a dark cloud (mysterious!) that sucks in all the light of the stars behind it. But whooo - maybe it's intelligent? At least more so than some people I know? (I resist the urge to say "politicians", that would be plainly unfair, and only partly true.)

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Last December a online dealer gave away the Blue Ray Special Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings for 50 Euros. Although I have the three DVDs of the cinematic cut and also I have seen the Special Editions on DVD (in a row, by the way) I could not resist. So I received the six blue ray discs and somewhat eleven or twelve DVDs with bonus material on it. I enjoyed watching the movie once again, the additional scenes were good and enlightning, I think at least for people who have read the book. But even more I now like to watch the bonus material, a thing a rarely do even this kind of add-ons is delivered with most of the movies since DVDs are on the market.

Cutting the Gordian Knot, by Gregg Herken

Tue, 01 May 1990 00:00:00 +0000

About Ted Merkle, as a sidebar to the article on Project Pluto

The Flying Crowbar

Tue, 01 May 1990 00:00:00 +0000

At the dawn of the atomic age, scientists began work on what might have been the nastiest weapon ever conceived.