Martin Geisler Online

I was sitting quietly playing The Curse of Monkey Island when the screen went completely blank… At first I thought it was the DPMS kicking in, that it had somehow managed to ignore my mouse movements. I pressed ⟨shift⟩ a couple of times but it didn’t help; I pressed ⟨Ctrl⟩-⟨Alt⟩-⟨F1⟩ to switch to the console, but it didn’t help.

Going back to my X server I restarted it (⟨Ctrl⟩-⟨Alt⟩-⟨Backspace⟩) but even that didn’t bring back the display. It killed all my open programs, and stopped the game music, confirming that the rest of the computer was operating normally.

Using Stéphanie’s laptop I was able to [SSH][] into my box and reboot it — the machine came up fine, but still with no image on my monitor. I then connected the laptop directly to the monitor, but that didn’t change anything. So it’s not a problem with my trusty old Matrox G400.

The monitor seems to be reacting to keypresses on the front of it and to sleep commands sent to it: the little diode switches from green to orange as usual and the monitor makes its normal sounds (a somewhat loud “boing”-sound when being awaken and a mild “static”-sound when going to sleep).

I’ve tried to let the monitor cool down a bit by having it turned off for half an hour, but like everything else that didn’t help either? Does anybody have any good ideas? I guess I should try replacing the BNC cable with a regular monitor cable, but how should such a cable become corrupt from one moment to another?!

It’s a real shame if it’s really broke — I really liked it in the five years I’ve had it.

Yesterday and today it’s been sunny all day with temperatures of over 30° C! How very strange — I had just gotten used to rainy weather, but then the sun comes back.

I hope the good weather will help clear up the remaining flooded areas here in Switzerland. I read in the 20 Minuten newspaper (ugh… they have way too many ads on their page!) that the Thun sea had finally reached a level below the so-called “damage level”. I assume this means that the sea is no longer flooding the area. A week ago the water reached a level of 70 cm over the damage level…

Here in Buchs, Aargau there’s no water in sight but all over the south and western parts of Switzerland they have all the water they need — and then some…

This morning Stéphanie told me that the Thun sea 70 cm over the “damage level”, and that she wouldn’t be able to go the direct way with train from Brig to Berne (and from there onto Aarau). I assume that the “damage level” is the highest level is can reach before flowing into the surrounding areas?

There is an alternative (about two hour longer) route going over Lausanne but the SBB are urging people to stay put and not travel around the country unless necessary. So she’ll wait in Wallis for now. It’s good that she’s going by train and not by car — just look at this image:

Flodding is an almost unknown concept for us Danes, but the Swiss is not so fortunate: parts of Berne as well as large areas around Lucerne are flooded! As far as I’ve understood it, then it started at some point last night when some of the rivers in central Switzerland could no longer handle the heavy rain we’ve been having the last couple of days. The rain will go East in the next days, but until it’s gone people are still fighting the water.

I’ve taken some screenshots from my tv-card — it’s incredibly how much debris the water can pull along on its way. The first picture below is from Berne. It’s very strange for me to see the streets in Berne like that, for I’ve been on some of them…

Stéphanie is down in Wallis right now with her parents, and she has to stay there for an unknown while since the trains no longer run between Brig and Aarau. I wonder how long it will take before the water is gone and the trains can resume? And if the tracks still are where they were before?

Lately my site has seen a bunch of spam comments about Phentermine, Alprazolam, and other drugs… luckily they have all been caught by the builtin spam filters in WordPress. But what are all those drugs about anyway, and will people really buy drugs from some website (usually with a not so trustworthy name…) found via a link buried deep in a discussion about PHP Shell?!

A quick search on Google explains that Phentermine is used for loosing weight by lowering the appitite, and Alprazolam is used to relieve anxiety, nervousness, and tension. But is there really such a big market for such drugs?

I guess so, just as there has to be a market for all stuff email spam try to sell us. You know, those appliances and drugs that promise to enlarge various body parts in no time! :-)