Nostalgy

Re-read some posts from two years ago. Kind of interesting to see what I thought at that time, what my mood was at that time and how I thought I will only spend half a year or so in Hamburg. It's now something like one and a half year I have spent between Hamburg and Erlangen and I still prefer the little province town to the big booming city full of opportunities. Fun to see where you change and where not...

2nd Anniversary

Micha kindly reminded me that today is the 2nd anniversary of this blog... So I watched a movie. Fitzcarraldo. For me, one of the best movies ever. For various reasons:



They did carry a fucking big ship over a hill in the amazonian rain forest.



They passed some rapids with said ship. The main actor and camera crew aboard, resulting only in a dislocated shoulder of the cameraman.



And Kinski at his best. During shooting of the movie one of the indian chiefs offered to kill him, as he was always fighting with the director and generally mad.

Statistics...

Around 70% of the 11-15 year olds questioned said they did not picture scientists as "normal young and attractive men and women".



Among those who said they would not like to be scientists, reasons included: "Because you would constantly be depressed and tired and not have time for family", and "because they all wear big glasses and white coats and I am female".


Found at the BBC. As it speaks for itself I will refrain from any comments...

UPDATE: Also an interesting post on the same article on cosmic variance. Especially nice are the pictures :-)

IKB

Been to an art museum on sunday. This is the most impressive painting I saw. (Actually it isn't. This is Monochrome 79. I saw Monochrome 43 (or something). But you get the idea).

Women in Physics

A lot of physicists grew up as socially awkward adolescents — not exactly the captain of the football team, if you know what I mean — and have found that as scientists they can suddenly be the powerful bullies in the room, and their delight in this role helps to forge a strangely macho and exclusionary culture out of what should be a joyful pursuit of the secrets of the universe.

CosmicVariance has a post on women in physics and why there are only so few of them. Above quotation not only might indicate why, it also shows why working in physics sucks. It's not only the treatment of women, physics I think is gender-indifferent in most physicist being socially retarted idiots. Men are just used to it, as we are more prone to be one ourself. So, instead of concluding that we need more women in physics, I would conclude we need more socially apt people. Which might not necessarily be women, but, as you can also read in the post (there cited as an argument of macho-idiot-phyiscists like me), women actually do look better...

Original

Found some web-gallery which actually seems to be nice...: Original.

You need to run a local script to generate the gallery, then copy it to your webserver and then, voilá, nice gallery. Very easy to add information or protect individual galleries with a password (put into info.txt restricted_user|<username> and restricted_password|<password>)

To rotate images before use exiftran.

Weekend trip

Hamburg - Achim - Erlangen - Köln - Hannover - Hamburg. 1510 km. Two parties, one social security number, an art museum and a bit of paperwork... Busy weekend it was.

Scientifically proven...

Life's harder for man.

You've been Pimped?

I am now officially certified to comply with EN 14153-2.

Random Philosphy

Passionate in english usually refers to love and sex. In portuguese apaixionado means in love. In german "passioniert" is usually used in conjunction with stamp collecting and other really passionate stuff. Strange people.

Lights

New toys arrived. Now I can enter the world of glamour portraits (and normal portraits as well), the only thing I need is models. Any volunteers?

Happy...?

Your Social Dysfunction: Happy You're a happy person - you have a good amount of self-esteem, and are socially healthy. While this isn't a social dysfunction per se, you're definitely not normal. Consider yourself lucky: you walk that fine line between 'normal' and being outright narcissistic. You're rare - which is something else to be happy about.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com Please note that we aren't, nor do we claim to be, psychologists. This quiz is for fun and entertainment only. Try not to freak out about your results.

"Abuso di Credulita Popolare"

Seems you are not allowed to publically fool people in italy. Now a court has to decide if it is the church or the atheist fooling them...

Working on weekends...

The bottom line is that, in my experience, one will in general be healthier, happier, and more successful if one takes reasonable amounts of time away from work, doing whatever helps you to relax. Don’t let the culture of crazy work schedules and macho bragging about them drive you to unhealthy practices. Find out what works for you and, as long as it isn’t clearly unreasonable, stick with it, and explain that to anyone who tries to persuade you not to.

--- Found on Cosmic Variance

Seems I am not the only one thinking that having time off is better for your mental health...

Tech Underground

This looks promising,

Random Stuff

Happy Newton's day. (Newtons Birthday was the 25th...). Also celebrated on the same day: the birth of the first communist jew or jewish communist roughly 2000 years ago.

On tsunami-news: the german minister of science now wants a tsunami warning system for the mediterranean. The one in the pacific and indean ocean (if working at all) will give people a 10 minute before warning. Assuming the speed of tsunamis is the same in the mediterranean as it is in the pacific and the indian ocean, this will give you a 2 minute before warning (rough and unscientific guess by me). Time enough to kiss your ass goodbye or have a last quick one with your girl-friend (or whatever at hand), not time enough to run.

And I'll be gone till the 5th, as there surprisingly is no work to be done inbetween...

Bonobos

Just came home from a nice evening with friends. Going with the S-Bahn is always interesting...

Just opposite of me sat a couple, both being at the beginning of their twenties. He sitting there showing off like "I have that big balls and a that huge member, I can't even sit straight", she sitting completely taken by something in her hands, ignoring him. Both having that "I'm so annoyed"-face. No talking. Then he grabs whatever she was holding in her hands, she shouting at him to be careful. Silence. Annoyance. Kissing. More Kissing. He starting to take out his earphones, not paying much interest in her, even while still kissing. She had to get off at the next station, saying "I love you", he mumbling something, then louder "You too". Kisses. She leaving, he completely obsessed by his walkman. Still annoyance on both of their faces.

Then I thought, well, my life sucks. But their life sucks even more, and worse: they don't even know it.

Cosmic Variance

This seems to be interesting...

A poem is a city

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.


--- Charles Bukowski