wolfgang's blog

Yesterday (12/04/09) Google launched their new public DNS service. According to Google this is part of their strategy to "make the web faster".

Well, I tried it and it really speeds up surfing significantly. Although it might not be ideal for every one, compared to the web browsing experience with the settings from my ISP (T-Online) Google DNS lookup seems to be really much faster now.

Should I be worried now about "Big Brother" Google getting even more data about me besides GMail, Reader, Picasa, Chrome, etc.? Hmm... like with all good things, there are some risks...

While I was flying back from Tucson,AZ to good old Germany I found myself looking out of the window of the aircraft and hoping that this Boeing 767 wasn't built the same way as we all are developing software...

Although our civilization runs on software and software engineering has half a century of history the artifacts we are creating are by no means as robust, reliable and serviceable as an aircraft, a bridge or a car.

I guess everyone who has ever worked on a serious software project knows what I'm talking about, right? In 2002 a NIST study revealed that software errors cost U.S. economy $59.5 billion and although we have detailed analyis of the problems (e.g. The Ariane 5 Accident: A Programming Problem?, 1996) it still looks like we're making the same errors over and over again.

I've chosen iBlogger to feed my Drupal powered blog. Looks like it has all the features I need.
Here's a picture of our hike at the Rheinsteig last weekend.

Some of my teammates diligently post daily stories about our tanzanian adventures to their blogs. Here are the links to follow:
http://bethgoestoafrica.blogspot.com/
http://deniseintanzania.blogspot.com/
http://tsindu.tumblr.com/
Finally here's our team blog on the IBM site: https://www-146.ibm.com/corporateservicecorps/node/2897

Have fun!

The african handshake is a shake with a twist. You usually start with the traditional western-style handshake, then, without letting go the person's hand, slide your hand around the other person's thumb and finally go back to the western position. It takes a while to master and learn in all its variations. Various hand positions and clicking of fingers and punching of fists. It's a bit of a ritual here to greet the people you know very well in this way.

On Sunday six of us went to the evangelical lutheran church which is just around the corner of the New Dodoma Hotel where we are staying. There were several services this morning. Right before we came a swahilian ceremony ended and the english ceremony was about to start. So we sat down in the back of the church. It was a very lively ceremony compared to what I'm used to in my hometown. Lot's of singing and praising the Lord. The pastor delivered a very engaged sermon. These new visitors obviously not from Tanzania caught the attention of the pastor and he invited us to come to the front and introduce ourselfs to the community. Now imagine six people, two from India, one from Slovakia, one from the United States, one from Japan and one from Germany introducing themselfs and telling that they are on a kind of peace corps mission helping the local university. Of course we got a very warm welcome and after the ceremony several people wanted to talk to us about what we are doing here in Tanzania. I've exchanged addresses with one of the members of the presbytery. Maybe we can connect both our communities...

Even on the weekends we are busy: This weekend we were visiting the Central Tanzanian Wine Company http://www.cetawico.com. Cetawico was founded by an italian engineer and entrepreneur. The Fondzione San Zeno from Italy also helped with know-how and machinery.

Interestingly enough the climate for grapes is good in the Dodoma region and due to the low humidity nearly no chemicals are needed to grow them.

We got a 2 hour long tour through their facility and got the opportunity to taste their wine.

Now that I'm from a wine region in Germany I know at least a little bit about wine and how it is produced and what I saw and heard about how their wine is produced was impressive. The methods used in Cetawico's modern facility are european standard, at least!

Having heard all that I was interested about the taste of their different red wines. What should I say? It was just fantastic!

Someone from our team made a joke that at the end of our assignment here in Tanzania all female members should be able to balance an item on their head while walking like tanzanian women can do with ultimate perfection. All men should be able to ride a bicycle with at least 10 canisters tied to it as we have seen a lot of men doing it. They even manage to survive in Dar Es Salaam rush hour traffic...

Now our running gag here is that we're always trying to invent new iPhone apps especially thoses that don't make any sense at all. So today we came up with the idea that women could try to balance the iPhone on there head in an upright position, of course. The screen should show a moving water level so that you can practice in front of a mirror. Isn't that great iPhone app as well? These guys are so much fun. I really enjoy being on this team...

We drove from Dar Es Salaam to Dodoma yesterday. What an amazing landscape! There was a Wow! filling the whole bus on every hilltop because of the gorgeous views we were spotting. Tanzania is such a beautiful country! I guess everyone of us already fell in love with it although we're only here for three days. Not only because of the landscape but also because of the people who are always friendly and when you talk to them they always have a big smile on thier faces.

Today was our first day on the University campus and we were continuously Wow!-ing again. We were guided to most of the sites with classroom and lab buildings and student housings. We were Wow!-ing not only because of the dimensions of this campus but also because of the speed it is being built up. In 2006 there was only the main building and now there are so many of them. It's so great to see that this country is investing heavily in education... BTW: Here is our photoset on flickr. We're updating it regularly (hopefully...)

As part of the preparation for the IBM Corporate Service Corps assignment there was a recommendation to watch this video of NYU professor William Easterly. Prof. Easterly explains why the UN, World Bank, Live Aid, etc. have failed with their plans to end poverty. Devastating… but at least it was a great music event I still can remember.