I tried to twit this, but when I pasted the word in Twitter, it exploded. So I will have to do it here

For anyone saying that Swedish is a difficult language to learn, here is an example of a simple word. The word is:

Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmateriel
underhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten

And according to the dictionary it means:

Preparatory work on the contribution to the discussion on the maintaining system of support of the material of the aviation survey simulator device within the north-east part of the coast artillery of the Baltic

Is there anyone out there not able to pronounce this?

If this is not an epic fail, I do not know what is

Repost from Yupi.gr
15 λόγοι που θέλουμε να πάρει ο ΠΑΟΚ το πρωτάθλημα

1. Γιατί έχει να το πάρει από το 1985. Πόσα χρόνια πρέπει να περάσουν δηλαδή, για να ξαναδούν οι Παοκτζήδες χαρά στα χέρια τους;
2. Γιατί γουστάρουμε τον Πάμπλο Γκαρσία.
3. Γιατί ο Μουσλίμοβιτς είναι ένας τρελός με χαρτί γιατρού που κυκλοφορεί ελεύθερος και θα θέλαμε να δούμε τι θα κάνει, όταν σηκώσει την κούπα.
4. Γιατί μας αρέσει το μότο «(Μ)ΠΑΟΚ να ‘σαι και μη φοβάσαι».
5. Γιατί έχουμε βαρεθεί, όταν δεν το παίρνει ο Ολυμπιακός, να το παίρνει ο Παναθηναϊκός και το αντίστροφο.
6. Γιατί θα σταματήσει λίγο η γκρίνια για το περιβόητο κατεστημένο της Αθήνας, που δεν αφήνει τις ομάδες της Θεσσαλονίκης να κερδίσουν.
7. Γιατί θα καεί η Τούμπα.
8. Γιατί ο Παναγιώτης Ψωμιάδης θα βγει στις μεσημεριανές εκπομπές και θα δηλώνει ότι και σε αυτόν οφείλεται η επιτυχία του ΠΑΟΚ.
9. Γιατί ο Φερνάντο Σάντος μπορεί να μην είναι κανένας τρομερός προπονητής, αλλά είναι συμπαθής ως άνθρωπος.
10. Γιατί το μετρό της συμπρωτεύουσας θα καθυστερήσει, οπότε κάτι πρέπει να γίνει και για τη Θεσσαλονίκη. Εκτός από το Φεστιβάλ.
11. Γιατί ο Ολυμπιακός δεν παίζει μπάλα φέτος.
12. Γιατί ο Ζήσης Βρύζας είναι ωραίος — έτσι λένε οι γυναίκες.
13. Γιατί υπάρχει στον ΠΑΟΚ ο Θοδωρής Ζαγοράκης.
14. Γιατί οι ψυχίατροι της Τσιμισκή θα αυξήσουν την πελατείας τους με τους οπαδούς του ΠΑΟΚ, που θα χάσουν εντελώς το μυαλό τους.
15. Γιατί η Θεσσαλονίκη είναι η πιο ωραία πόλη της Ελλάδας.

John, made an interesting post, regarding how many system / library calls a very simple Java program (Hello World) does when it executes. The post can be found here

I decided to try the same in C, and here are the results

First of all, the magnificent piece of code

#include
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
        printf("Hello world!\n");
        return;
}

Now the system call

dstergiou@kl10:~$ strace -c -f -q ./a.out
Hello world!
% time     seconds  usecs/call     calls    errors syscall
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
100.00    0.000029          15         2           open
  0.00    0.000000           0         1           read
  0.00    0.000000           0         1           write
  0.00    0.000000           0         2           close
  0.00    0.000000           0         1           execve
  0.00    0.000000           0         3         3 access
  0.00    0.000000           0         1           brk
  0.00    0.000000           0         1           munmap
  0.00    0.000000           0         3           mprotect
  0.00    0.000000           0         7           mmap2
  0.00    0.000000           0         3           fstat64
  0.00    0.000000           0         1           set_thread_area
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
100.00    0.000029                    26         3 total

And finally the library call

dstergiou@kl10:~$ ltrace -c -f ./a.out
Hello world!
% time     seconds  usecs/call     calls      function
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------------------
100.00    0.000179         179         1 puts
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------------------
100.00    0.000179                     1 total

As it is obvious, you have to love Java…

My good friend Kostas posted an amazing comment, using a “bar” story to explain how taxes work. Unfortunately, the comment was in Greek, but Kostas was kind enough to provide the source (author and paper name), so after some Googling, here is the original English text:

Bar Stool Economics

By: David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.

The fifth would pay $1.

The sixth would pay $3.

The seventh would pay $7.

The eighth would pay $12.

The ninth would pay $18.

The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. ‘Since you are all such good customers, he said, ‘I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’ They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).

The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).

The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).

The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).

The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).

The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

‘I only got a dollar out of the $20′, declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,’ but he got $10!’

‘Yeah, that’s right’, exclaimed the fifth man. ‘I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I!’

‘That’s true!!’ shouted the seventh man. ‘Why should he get $10 back when I got only two?

The wealthy get all the breaks!’

‘Wait a minute,’ yelled the first four men in unison.

‘We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!’

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.

Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast from the pauldotcom crew, and they were talking about image metadata, and specifically about how pictures taken with iPhone contain a whole bunch of metadata, including GPS coordinates

So, I decided to try it, with the following picture that I took some time ago, at the Greek embassy in Stockholm

Here is the picture:

Step 1, was to use an online EXIF tag viewer, and my choice was: http://regex.info/exif.cgi

I pointed the tool to my picture, and here are the results:

Oh crap, let’s click on the “Location” link, using Google

If this is not worrying, I don’t know what is…

Some (or many) years ago, Mulder quoted one of my most used phrases. He said, “I want to believe”. And today, right now, it’s time for me to use this quote

You see, as i have read, PAOK beat Panithinaikos 2-1, and now, as it seems, we (we being PAOK) are just 2 points behind with 7 games to go

I have only one thing to say. If you happen to check the game highlights, make sure you pay special attention to PAOK’s first goal, by Pablo Garcia. Amazing goal or what

Now, it’s time!! 25 years later (last title in 1985) it’s time for a new title

I WANT TO BELIEVE!!!

I am sure you have all heard jokes about someone who decided to visit a country for vacation, fell in love with the place and then decided to move there for life…

I kinda feel the same when i read:

It has been the worst winter in 22 years

Source: The local

Can we please do something about this snow?

Buying Greek coffee at Stockholm (post made for a specific friend)

God damn freaking epic!