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My latest book: Laurence Rees – The Nazis

Books

My latest book – Laurence Rees – The Nazis, a warning from history.

…Described as ‘one of the greatest documentary series of all times’ ‘The Nazis – A Warning from History’ won a host of awards, including a Bafta and an International Documentary Award. The accompanying book broke new ground in our understanding of the Nazi regime and was praised for ‘getting to the heart of the most troubling and elusive questions of Germany before and during World War Two’. The dramatic and incredible story that unfolds in these pages, once read, is not easily forgetten.

See more at bbcshop.com

A book of horror, mostly since you get to realize that many of the people who did the most horrible things during WW2 where just ordinary people in the beginning, just like you and me, and when the war was over, they returned to their ordinary lives. Makes you think…could I have done the same thing? And also, even though Hitler himself was not a highly educated man, many of the leading Nazis where…and still…

Firewall verification using a script

Work/Geek

Needed to verify a lot of ports that should be opened making it possible to connect to three hosts. Had to do some surfing, and as always by the help of Google I managed to create a bash-script solving the issue for me.


#!/bin/bash
 
###### Set variables ########
# IP of WAS-server 4,5,6
PREIP=10.10.31.
POSTIP="4;5;6"
# Use Notepad++ and see http://ccapeng.blogspot.no/2008/06/notepad-replace-pattern-with-line-break.html to create the below listings
CSIV2_SSL="10113;10036;10046;10056;10066;10076;10086;10096"
ORB_LISTENER="10014;10024;10034;10044;10054;10064;10074"
BOOTSTRAP="10111;10032;10042;10052;10062;10072;10082"
 
###### DO THE MAGIC ######
echo "Testing from `hostname`"
echo "***********************"
# Use of IFS, see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/918886/split-string-based-on-delimiter-in-bash
OIFS=$IFS
IFS=';' read -ra IPARR <<< "$POSTIP"
for ip  in "${IPARR[@]}";
do
    MACHINE=$PREIP$ip
    echo ""
    echo "¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤"
    echo "Testing connectivity against ip $MACHINE"
    echo "¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤"
    echo ""
    echo "Checking CSIV2_SSL_SERVERAUTH_LISTENER_ADDRESS"
    IFS=';' read -ra CSIV2ARR <<< "$CSIV2_SSL"
    for port in "${CSIV2ARR[@]}";
    do
        # Ignore errors, instead print below
        exec 3>/dev/tcp/${MACHINE}/$port 2>/dev/null
        if [ $? -eq 1 ]
        then
            #Only report errors, ret.value = 1 (success = 0)
                echo "Telnet connections not possible on port $port"
        fi
    done
    
    #...as above, for the rest of the ports needed to be checked, 
    #...copy the above statements and change the source variable.
    #...a bit dirty, but hey, solving a one time issue...who cares :-)

done
# Set IFS back to old value
IFS=$OIFS

End of Trans Germany 2012

Sport

Last day we headed from Seefeld in Austria back to Germany and ended up in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Four very hard but most of all very fun days was over.

  • Day 1 – Sonthofen – Pfronten 73,1 km 2758m ascent, 2639 descent. #238 of 308 – 5:01:48. One puncture, one technical stop in addition. Cramps the last five kilometers. So much uphill and very steep downhill…worst day ever.
  • Day 2 – Pfronten – Lermoos (Austria). 78,39 km 2295 ascent, 2170 descent. #212 of 300 – 4:37:06. Overall (not really sure due to a crappy result list this day). A very nice day on the bike, fun to ride all the time!
  • Day 3 – Lermoos – Seefeld (Austria). 58,96 km 1864 ascent, 1667 descent. #204 of 295 – 3:19:06 – Overall 218. Started hard, tried to follow Ole Andreas, had to let him go in the second ascent, but just before the top it started to get fun again, and I was able to pedal pretty hard the rest of the race. Almost died and went to heaven when I missed a turn and in about 40 km/h biked straight out into the woods. Luckily I did not fall of the bike, neither did I hit any trees, missed a minute or two, but no injuries which was most important.
  • Day 4 – Seefeld – Garmish-Partenkirchen. 78,05 km, 1731 ascent, 2231 descent. #199 (YES!!) of 288. 3:54:08. Got a good start, had not felt any better, from the second ascent I was able to push hard until the rain came, then I lost much of the motivation, was really happy when I started on the last ascent – finally warm again…but hell, it was sooo long and sooo steep. Finally we started the descent to the finish line, and after four days with only one puncture and a minor techical issue fixed in no time both me and the bike had finished Trans Germany 2012. Overall 207 of 287, down from 308 finishers the first day.

Back in Sonthofen preparing the bags before heading home in the car. Lars pretty happy!

The rear disk of Lars’ bike. It is not rust you see, but burns after the intense heat when breaking in the steep downhills, mostly on day one and three.

Learned a lot, most important lesson – for some strange reason the body just seems to adopt to the race, making it easier to go every day.

Seefeld, Day #3 of Trans Germany

Sport

Day three and we ended up in Seefeld, Austria. Not to many pictures taken there, only the three when walking in the main street in the afternoon. This was where we passed the finish line on day three and where we started on the last day.

Had to replace my back tire, Stan’s The Raven, it was totally worn out after three days of Trans Germany together with Einarittet and Terrengsykkelrittet. The guys at Maxxis helped me fit the Maxxis Ikon tubless. No more Raven for me, it gets worn out to fast, but apart from that – a super tire.