I need to get a secret blog. Some of the people I would like to write about are reading it ;-)

Had a couple of beers with some friends. Maybe I shouldn't do the devils advocate, but I just like to take positions in a discussions which not nessesary are my point of view... Sometimes, when I mostly agree with people in a discussion, I take some other point, just to keep the discussion going, I just like to discuss. This is good in discussion with jehova's witnesses, but it might be something not to do with friends.

We're all looking for a woman who can sit in a mini-skirt and talk philosophy, executing both with confidence and style.

(bottom line on slashdot.org ...)

It's saturday night in Erlangen. The place is called "The Fat Lady sings". The lady who sings isn't fat at all though, actually it is a really good looking blonde. The band plays Grateful Death and Crosby, Stills and Nash. The pub is crowded. A nice looking curly blonde sits at the bar, smiles at me, but keeps on talking to an ugly old guy. Sitting there, having a couple of beers with a good friend. Behind me a guy looking like John "Maddog" Hall, around us people who seem to be nice, you can talk to them, when you listen to their conversation you do not want to bang your head on the wall. It's a nice evening, you feel good being in that pub, you feel like home, the owner of the pub recognizes me, chats a few lines. It really is like being home.

A week ago. Some pub in Hamburg. It is brighter, looks a bit more silish. The waiter is nice, but has difficulties speaking my language. People sitting in the pub mind their own businesses, look like you do not want to talk to them. If you listen to their conversations, you wonder how stupid people can be. Just on the next table sits a gay flight attendant with his boyfriend. Amazing how people fit to the stereotype. He is talking about how he really does not like olives. Just if a bad novelist wrote the dialogue. Everybody is closed in, all of them look like they are trying really hard to be cool, to show off. It is like a fashion show, nobody is normal. Everybody has picked a role model and wants to be exactly like it. Like a convention of Barbie dolls, it just seems like plastic, not real...

I do not want to fit in there. I just like being me, not following a trend how to be cool. Hamburg people are really stressed to be like their role models, and they seem really frustrated because they do not really reach their ideal. Maybe they just should try to be normal...

Christmas seems more promising this year...

Ah! a selvajaria desta selvajaria! Merda
Pra toda a vida como a nossa, que não é nada disto!
Eu pràqui engenheiro, práctico à força, sensível a todo,
Pràqui parado, em relação a vós, mesmo quando ando;
Mesmo quando ajo, inerte; mesmo quando me imponho, débil;
Estático, quebrado, dissidente cobarde da vossa Glória,
Da vossa grande dinâmica estridente, quente e sangrenta!

Arre! por não poder agir de acordo com o meu delírio!
Arre! por andar sempre agarrado às saias da civilização!
Por andar com douceur des mœurs às costas, como um fardo de rendas!
Moços de esquina - todos nòs somos - do huminitarismo moderno!
Estupores de tísicos, de neurasténicos, de linfáticos,
Sem coragem para ser gent ecom violência e audácia,
Com a alma como uma galinha presa por uma perna!

excerpto de Álvaro de Campos - Ode marítima

Yesterday I sent a mail to our groups mailing list, stating that after 11 hours sitting in a loud environment and breathing dried air I reached my limit and will go home now (actually, the main message was something else...)

Today I got a response (CCed to the group list) from one of my bosses: when he was doing actual work, 11 hours was his average spent in the same hall, and he could be there much longer. Well. SOD OFF! I am feeling motivated, valued etc now.

Things that make me feel like a valued member of our collaboration: getting forgotten when everybody goes for lunch. Things (like specs) change, but nobody tells me. I have to set something up, but nobody tells me the important pitfall everybody but me knows. Yeeehaaa for my collegues.

Just watching a TV documentary ybout the cosmos (called cosmos or space or someting like that...) Somebody should shoot TV producers...

BE AFRAID! There is meteors hitting earth any time soon now, killing every bit of live on it. Billions of tons of stone will fall down just in your neighbourhood. Then there is supernovas, black holes, dangerous stars nearby. Every 30 million years earth passes a region of higher density of stars in the milky way, risking comets getting kicked direction earth. And: the average lifetime of a species is a couple of million years. We have been around a couple of million years, so we will ALL GONNA DIE SOON! RUN! FEAR! BE AFRAID OF THE DANGEROUS COSMOS...

But thank god, the american army is doing a lot of research how to prevent these terrorist meteors and communist comets hitting civilized world. And Kevin Costner (or whoever that stupid presenter was) warns us about it...

No wonder Science is not really fashionable, if it is presented this way.

Just had a meeting again. This meeting is supposed to be a working meeting, where all problems we had the last week and all stuff which has to be done this week is addressed. Tha last few meetings BigBoss kept on showing up, so now this meeting has become a Explain-BigBoss-your-Hardware-the-umpth-time meeting. I just love it...

I just passed by an advertisment for an exhibition called "100.000 years of sex". Not to be confused with the erotic and fetish fair, which happens to be at the same time in Hamburg. This exhibition is in a well known museum, so it is culture, it is art. No pornography. The difference is that the explicit pictures are no high quality photographs but antique pots. And they show the fornication of young boys which is now only allowed for artistic purposes...

The title made me think a bit. 100.000 years of sex. Just imagine the time before. Homo erectus sitting in his cave, being bored, all day just hunting and being cloned by aliens. One lucky day, some idea strikes him. That thing between his legs, erected all the day (that is why he is called homo erectus), maybe could be of some other use than to hang your fur on or fix the fishing line...

And there is that other being in the cave, which is same species, but somehow wrong... Connecting the dots, he figures out something. And now knowing things, he passes being homo erectus to being homo sapiens, the knowing human. Evolution finally got rid of those stupid aliens cloning humans even more stupid...

Wer also allgemeine Aufklärung verbreitet, verschafft zugleich eben dadurch allgemeine wechselseitige Sicherheit, und allgemeine Aufklärung und Sicherheit machen Fürsten und Staaten entbehrlich. Oder wozu braucht man sie sodann?

Adam Weishaupt

Just returned from Fresher's Weekend (or whatever you want to call it, going with some 20 first year students into a youth hostel and telling them about university...). It seems, there is only a limited amount of different types who study physics or mathematics. You have the sociophobic, wiseassy geek, there is the MacGuyver-Type and there is the Physics-Teacher (everybody had one of them in school, so no need to explain deeper). Mathematicians also fall into these categories, but sometimes they vary a bit more...

After the freshmen left, we went to a bath in Amberg. If there is something like really deep Provvinzz, I think Amberg is very close (although looking like a nice little town). I am still amazed about how dump people can be. And I really start hating german ways of doing things. Take the way germans behave in a Sauna: In the Sauna there is either absolute silence, nobody talks, if somebody has to say something, it is whispered. Or you have some dumbasses boasting around, shouting there stupidities around.

You have the people who run into the sauna, when water is thrown onto the stove, then run out after a few minutes, just to return a few minutes later. In, out, in, out, like they work on a strange Carnot Cycle, transporting heat out of the Sauna into the resting area. Then there is always some walrus, getting into the sauna, climbing with an amazing effort onto the topmost seats, sitting there, after a few seconds making sounds like a steam engine, after a few minutes like a steam engine close to explosion, staying there until close to a heart attack. Jumping out of the Sauna, maybe showering and coming back after a much too short time. For germans, Sauna seems like having to be stress, pain and hush. Annoying people, who can't relax, who cannot have fun.

Some time since the last post... There's been a lot of stress lately, it will keep on some time, so do not expect a lot of posts until February. Short Version of what happened since then:

My bosses in HH finally discovered that it is not a long time until February, when our detector has to be ready. So everybody starts panicking now and wants new timelines and other useless stuff. It is getting more and more like a Dilbert Cartoon....

I should be in HH right now, but this weekend I spend down south together with some friends, just because. I am fed up with HH...

Personal stuff: being stubborn is good for being a physicist. You keep on insisting that your stuff works until it really works. It is not good for getting a relationship. Some time ago, I figured out, that after fifteen years of constantly trying, it is not going to work with a girl I know since school times (Actually, what I really like about her is, she did not say I am a really nice guy blabla, she said: "forget it"; I like people being straightforward). I am now good friends with her, but I still keep on trying. It kind of turned into a hobby. She by now knows how to handle me, so it is fun to be with her...

There is another girl, I tried to chat her up nearly a year ago (this expression just sounds harsh, but I do not know of any english expression more subtle....), I got the usual answer, that I am a really nice guy (well, phrased differently, nore like "Well.... Aehm.... You know...." , but essence the same...). I still keep on trying, convinced that it is worth the pain. Well, seems I am a really strange guy. Sometime I should learn from experience...

Sometimes I think I got it all wrong...

America is going to vote tomorrow (or so). Arte is showing Wag the Dog, Pro7 Fahrenheit 9/11, all other stations have something about the election as well. And me? I am reading a book. About Cartography...

The people in the states can vote without me. They will get the president they deserve (that is why it is a democracy). And the world will go on anyway. Maybe one or too countries will be bombed out of existence if Bush wins, maybe one or too countries will be bombed out of existence if Kerry wins (also Democrats tried to do Damascectomies). Who knows...

I managed to get speech output working for my IRC program! Yoohooo!