20 April 2010 16:02 -
Today I made a small and simple script to make my crontabs more readable. The
usage is quit simple. Run te script and redirect the output to a file.
Review this file. Then when the file is ok,
load it with crontab <file>
The script:
#! /usr/bin/env bash
crontab -l | while read min hour day month wday regel
do
if [ x${min:0:1} = "x#" ]
then
echo "${min}" "${hour}" "${day}" "${month}" "${wday}" "${regel}"
else
if [ x${min:0:1} = "x" ]
then
echo
else
printf "%-7s %-7s %-7s %-7s %-7s %s" "${min}" \
"${hour}" "${day}" "${month}" "${wday}" "${regel}"
echo
fi
fi
done | sed 's/[ ]*$//'
13 April 2010 20:16 -
Finally I have some time again to write a blogpost. February and march were busy months in which
I moved from Enschede to Delft. Main advantage of this is of course that I live closer to my
work, which on average safes me around 12 hours a week of travel time. Another advantage
is of course that the house is larger (around 30 m^2) and do not have to park my car 10 minutes
away.
But that was not all that happened in the last 2 months. I also passed the PRINCE 2 Foundation
exam on the 19th of february.
Beside the PRINCE 2 Foundation exam I also received some Novell certification.
Due to my LPIC certifications I became a Novell Certified Linux Administrator and
a Novell Data Center Technical Specialist.
01 January 2010 09:44 -
As always at the beginning of the new year I look back at the previous
year in numbers. This time 2009.
Car
In 2009 a drove over
26,427 kilometers by car. A drop of
2.12%
compared to 2008. Based on the average diesel oil usage of my car this
amounts to over
1,638 liters of diesel oil used.
The highest GPS speed reached with my cars was 196 km/h.
I got a total of 1 speeding tickets (66% decrease compared to 2008),
for a total amount of 68 euro (a 60% decrease compared to 2008).
Speeding saved me around 25 hours, which makes the cost of speeding
around 2.72 euro per hour saved (Which makes it economically feasible).
1 person managed to damage my car, while it was parked. A decrease of 50% compared to 2008.
Running and cycling
I ran more than
14 kilometers an increase of
350% compared to 2008.
I cycled more than 192 kilometers a decrease of
82.71% compared to 2008. I had 1 flat tire while cycling.
The highest speed reached by bike was 51.47 km/h (23% decrease compared
to 2008). The highest average
speed was 25.33 km/h (10.24% decrease compared to 2008)
over a 20.37 kilometer track.
The longest track cycled was 52.2 kilometer.
Communication
I was on my cellphone for more then
33.5 hours a decrease of
29%
compared to 2008.
I typed more than 1,917,907 characters on IRC and twitter an increase of
103% compared
to 2008.
Travel
I traveled over
600 kilometers by plane a drop of
40% compared
to 2008.
I traveled over 65,504 kilometers by train a drop of
1.60% compared
to 2008.
I visited 3 foreign countries (Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom) an increase of
50% compared to 2008.
Health
I slept approximately
2,752 hours. An increase of
2.32% compared to 2008.
My average heartbeat in rest was 63.22 beats per minute. Which is
an 5.72% increase compared to 2008. This of course means that my heart beat more than
33,228,432 times in 2009.
My average weight in 2009 was 55.60 KG. Which is a drop of
0.215%
compared to 2008.
My estimated Vmax in 2009 was on average 36.53. Which is a decrease of
0.84%
compared to 2008.
My ability to lift weights increased by 17% compared to 2008 (times *
amount).
Other
I did
708 commits to my private subversion repository a decrease
of
26.76% compared to 2008.
I went shopping more than 76 times an increase of
1.33%
compared to 2008.
I completed 68 private projects an increase of 106% compared to 2008.
I logged in to remote hosts using ssh more than 7,308 times. A decrease of 44.5% compared to 2008.
I wrote 16 blogposts in 2009, 12 less than in 2008.
I read 24 books. Which amounts to over 10,000 pages.
The longest time of having no connection to the internet was 72 hours.
I watched 30 movies in 2009.
08 December 2009 19:12 -
Lately there has been some discussion in the Netherlands about the so
called 'kilometerheffing'. 'Kilometerheffing' means in effect that you
get a GPS enabled device in your car. This device tracks where you are
driving and based on that info you will be billed. I.e. you will have to
pay more for driving on busy roads. The average price will be around 3
eurocent per kilometer.
Of course this is an enormous invasion of privacy. Despite the claim
that the GPS data will stay in the car and only will be used in criminal
cases. And despite the fact that the only information the government,
represented by a billing office, will get is how much kilometers you
have driven for a given price. In this blog post I will show with a
simple example that the price per kilometer can be used to track your
movements.
People familiar with the road layout in the Netherlands will know that
coming from Leiden I have a few options to get to the A1.
- A44 - A4 - A10 - A1.
- A44 - A4 - A9 - A1.
- A4 - A10 - A1.
- A4 - A9 - A1.
The difference between options 1 and 3 depending on my decision to
Leiden on the east or the west side.
Lets now assume the following pricing scheme:
A44 1 eurocent per kilometer.
A1 2 eurocent per kilometer.
A4 4 eurocent per kilometer.
A9 3 eurocent per kilometer.
A10 5 eurocent per kilometer.
Lets also assume I get the following bill:
A kilometers of 1 eurocent
B kilometers of 4 eurocent
C kilometers of 3 eurocent
D kilometers of 2 eurocent
Is is fairly trivial to conclude I must have driven on the
A44, A4, A9 and A1. So I probably have driven route 2.
Of course this tracking by using prices can be improved significantly.
The major excuse being to regulate traffic. It is easy to argue that the
traffic is more dense on Monday morning so the tariff on the A10 should
be 5.005 eurocent per kilometer on Monday mornings. 5.004 eurocent on
Tuesday, 5.003 euro cent on Wednesday etc. Then having a 5.004
kilometer price on your bill would put you on the A10 on Tuesdays.
To further facilitate this way of tracking the innocent I would like to
propose the following scheme for the pricing:
B.WWWDDHHMMKKK eurocent per kilometer.
With
B - Base tariff.
WWW - Number indicating the road.
DD - The day of the month.
HH - The current hour in 24 hour format.
MM - The current minute of the day.
KKK - The position on the road in kilometers from the start of the road.
i.e. Driving on the 1st of December 2009 at 19:54 CET on the A35
between kilometer 50 till 51 would then cost you
2.035011954050 euro cent per kilometer. This of course also allows for
determining in which direction is travelled. Note that month and year is
not needed, because of the monthly invoicing. Or just maybe we should
put the GPS coordinates in the price.
But the moral of the story is,
datamining on your 'kilometerheffing' bill can tell a lot about your movements by car.
