Weekly-Bernd

Happy Easter

2005-03-17T21:30:00.000-05:00

I have to log in and write something every few months, lest I forget how this works.

Western Easter (I like saying that) is early this year, March 27. Orthodox Easter is considerably later this time around. If you are of a religion which believes in other things, feel free to ignore this. If you are an extreme atheist who experiences elevated blood pressure at the mere mention of religious holidays, then you have a rough life, and I would advise you not to move to Saudi Arabia.

Reading some of my earlier nonsense here, I apparently was thinking that glare from the sun would not be a problem in the northern winter for me. I had moved my work area against some north-facing windows, and I live in the northern hemisphere. Sounds
reasonable at first - until you see how bright the snow is. Oh well, it could be worse, I prefer it to dark gloomy days. If the heat works that is.

Merry Christmas

2004-12-24T21:36:00.000-05:00

I would like this occasion, the approaching date of December 25, 2004, to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

You think you are alone ?

2004-12-09T21:28:00.000-05:00

If you think you are lonely, I understand you. Most of us have felt that way. Maybe there are some people who deny it, they are liars, most probably. But here is something to put it in perspective, the lone whale found by the US Navy.

I read this in a number of places, here is one quote:

LONDON (Reuters) - A lone whale, with a voice unlike any other, has been wandering the Pacific for the past 12 years, American marine biologists said Wednesday.

Using signals recorded by the US navy to track submarines, they traced the movement of whales in the Northern Pacific and found that a lone whale singing at a frequency of around 52 hertz has cruised the ocean since 1992.

Its calls, despite being clearly those of a baleen, do not match those of any known species of whale, which usually call at frequencies of between 15 and 20 hertz.

The mammal does not follow the migration patterns of any other species either, according to team leader Mary Anne Daher.

I would like to ask this animal some questions. Maybe I am the first one? No, some Navy guys are probably adead of me in the line, they must have been wondering about this for a long time.

Cute furry animals

2004-10-22T22:42:00.000-04:00

I moved my desk the other day, so now I have a nicer look out the windows when I work on the computers. This will be good for the winter, and until April at least, because the windows face almost north. So there won't be any direct sun in my eyes with this setup for quite a while. This allows me to watch the squirrels and other wildlife out here, at the edge of the city. It is a nice change of pace, from the news of wars and troubles, global warming and outsourcing. A little bit of peace.

I look up today, while working on some admin stuff for my project, I relax a moment looking out to the grass and trees. Ten meters away, a fox goes by, an elegant, cute little predator, reddish brown and furry. It has a squirrel in its mouth, furry and cute and grey, and dead. Peace is relative.

A Landing you can walk away from...

2004-10-18T01:04:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, a Chinese satellite returned from space. You can read about it in this article. The authorities assure us that even though the roof of the dwelling the satellite landed on was demolished, the occupants (of the dwelling, the satellite was unmanned) are unharmed. More importanly,the satellite is unharmed too, and the "precision of the landing point is among the best in the world". Aha.

Autumn 2

2004-10-10T20:50:00.000-04:00

Sure is nice to have warm autumn weather. Except the mosquitoes are still with us. Oh well, can't have everything.

Autumn

2004-10-07T22:15:00.000-04:00

Almost forgot I had this blog. And the number of interesting things to talk about here has been, well, manageable.

Living north of the equator, the summer is over for me, has been for just over 3 weeks now. Not being used to winters any more, I felt a great deal of relief that we are getting another unexpected week of warm weather - well above 20C. Nice.

Maybe, global warming has arrived for real? The winter will be cancelled, due to lack of interest? Too much to hope for.

I read that someone successfully enforced their copyright on a god they made up. The justification for assessment of damages being that the deity was more difficult to reach, since another believer was using the (apparently low-bandwidth) communication channel to said deity. I don't remember if the interference was remedied after this legal action, or if the monetary penalty assessed (US$800 or so) was sufficient to compensate for the lack of the gods attention. Either way, between the two believers and the courts involved in this, some people suffer from poor judgement. I have to look up the references and post them, otherwise I won't believe it myself in a few weeks.

Deutsche Rechtschreibung

2004-08-20T19:58:00.000-04:00

Da geht die Diskussion ja so richtig rund jetzt. Seitens der Buerokraten in Deutschland darf uns keiner mehr leid tun, sondern sie duerfen (nein, muessen) uns jetzt Leid tun, ohne Androhung von Freiheitsstrafe!

Also, ich bin froh dass ich schon seit langem nicht mehr unter der Jurisdiktion der Kultusministerkonferenz lebe. Ich kann ungestraft und in Freiheit schreiben wie es mir passt, sogar ohne Umlaute. Und das tue ich auch.

Aetsch.

trains

2004-07-31T15:31:00.000-04:00

Before I forget it, here are notes about train travel in Europe. This is in two parts.

These are things that I am sure are well known in the train travelling community, but are maybe not completely obvious to people more used to air travel and cars and such.

In some countries, the train stops are announced in the train, and outside the train. In other countries this does not happen. Of course, if you don't understand the language it doesn't matter. Say, for example, you know English, French, and German. You will not understand much in Hungary or Bavaria. In Bavaria, this is because they don't speak German. In Hungary, its because they dont announce anything.

So, you read signs, and maybe get some advance information. The internet is fine for the advance info (for example at www.bahn.de, in german and english. And maybe in something else, I forget, so go and look.) But don't trust them completely, their knowledge of schedules is imperfect, especially outside of their company territory.

Now, suppose you have found the right train. It goes to where you want to go, and probably much further too. When do you get off the train?

One thing to do is write or print the schedule of stops, and then count and possibly identify the stops. This gives you an idea of where you are, relatively speaking, and how late the train is. Most train stations have signs telling you where you are, but you may not see those if you look at the wrong time. I don't know what i would do with the signs in Greece or Russia, where they have their own special alphabets (and I'm sure those alphabets are much better too). Or in Arabia, East Asia and the like, but then I said Europe at the start.

If you want to sleep on the train (and much of the scenery you see will suggest this is a good idea), you will need help with the counting of those stops. Similarly, if you sleep, and then re-orient yourself afterwards, be aware that not all of Europe is in the same time zone. This can be a factor if you travel east, you could wake up an hour too late, and overshoot your destination, which can be painful. And expensive, especially if you overshoot into the next country. Some of these countries are small.

Considering staying the better part of a night in a train station, because of scheduling difficulties? Be aware that some of them close at night (e.g. Wien Westbahnhof), which gives you an opportunity to hang out with the local homeless population. If you can get a Eurail pass of some kind, you may have extra time and unlimited mileage available on trains, instead of long hours in the train stations. This can be more pleasant and comfortable. Those are often (don't quote me on this) available only as first class tickets, which can be cool on the German ICE trains - nice and comfortable for the night, and they treat you as if you have money. Cool.

Or, you can fly.

back home

2004-07-26T19:16:00.000-04:00

Vacation is over, I'm home and safe. Not that it was particularly risky on my trip. I had a great time, as often happens my vacation was not long enough. I met some nice people, one of them was particularly wonderful - you know who you are.

Now the weather is unusually cool, it must be because of the global warming.

still on vacation

2004-07-11T08:33:00.000-04:00

I'm still on vacation. Its nice so far, very relaxing. I will be much more productive when i get back. I hope. Having a great time here, never felt better.

Vacation impressions

2004-07-05T16:54:00.000-04:00

I´m on my vacation now, things are working ok, and I get to where i want, more or less on time. But I am having a little trouble with these german kezboards. The z is where the y normally is. So I have to look at the keyboard while I type. And some of the function keys have really funny names. Who translated this stuff ?

Slavery

2004-06-24T17:33:00.000-04:00

Saw an interesting book review today
in the Sueddeusche Zeitung:
>Noch immer geleugnet, by Egon Flaig

scary stuff, slavery appears alive and well.
I have heard about this before, parts of the african
population (but not only them) are still targets,
and some of the cultures who have been importing
slaves for more than 1000 years, are apparently still
doing it. I wonder where one gets better information
about this kind of thing...

the United Nations are aware of this sort of stuff,
for example in a report of the Office of the High Comissioner on Human Rights.
But these organizations have to arrive at some bureaucratic consenus for public consumption, so as not to insult member states too much. Some aspects of the problem could well be worse. Some examples have been written about in respected journals, and I'm sure there is a lot more. It doesn't seem to get much press in the dailies.

first post

2004-06-15T10:56:00.000-04:00

Still working on my vacation plans, its hard to get flights.
And the airlines complain about lack of business, this doesnt
seem very consistent.

Ausserdem noch: bei der Euro dieser ganze Streit ueber
Deutschland - Holland. Wochenlang, mindestens. Vor dem
Spiel: ist Weltkrieg Revanche, oder sogar Rache. Man hat
so richtig Angst.

Und dann ? 1-1.

Entscheidung wird vertagt ? Oder war es doch nur ein Fussballspiel.

Na ja.