randform

From his last conference in spain Tim brought back the typical conference presents, like notepads and informations about the region of Castro Urdiales. Well I am not so interested in settling down in Castro-Urdiales so I flipped only briefly through the infos about the real estate developments of the region. However what caught my attention was the above paper strip. It is an explanation of how to use a spanish fan (there was also a plastic fan among the presents) (Warning: I had never been to spain so my astonishment about the fan may appear ridiculous to some spain experts).

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again a short story from my classmate which she wants me to publish for her creative writing class (in german). this time the task was to contemplate about language use in advertisements.

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I am back in Berlin. It is nice to be back again, but I will certainly miss the very english local peculiarities like e.g. discussions about discussing car races!

Unfortunately e.g. the recent headline in the Berliner Zeitung displays that there are much more serious issues than car races which need to be tackled. In particular the Berliner Zeitung article asserts that the polar Ice seems to melt faster than previously assumed. (some more images via realclimate). According to Berliner Zeitung the Arctis may well be free of ice by 2040 instead of the by the IPCC predicted 2070. There seems also to be evidence that the species in the soil of newly frost free regions like e.g. in Siberia may enforce the runaway effect, where I hope that this effect is not going as far as in the mars on earth experiment, where there was finally not enough oxygen left for breathing.

One of the major problems which leads to an even more dramatic rapid climate change is clearly the danger of overpopulation. So rethinking social conventions and dynamics may be necessary.

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Due to the tube strike I learned a lot about London bus, tube and train ticket systems (e.g. like the above oyster card, a 10 pounds recharge card). I am happy that my sister has an insight into the matter because the system is fairly complicated (e.g. for taking a longer trip a day ticket is better). However it is not as crazy as the subway system in Tokyo, where on a longer trip it may happen that one needs to pass several toll points and buy new tickets each time. As I understood this is mainly due to the fact that the lines have seperate owners. The Tokyo subway ticketing system reminded me a bit of the toll policy in Germany in medieval times, where virtually every feudal sovereign put up a toll station (it reminded me actually also of the german current network). And likewise the ticket problem in my last post seems to be at least partially due to national borders.

Despite of new means of communication such as cell phones, videoconferencing etc. you will still have to meet with your potential collaborators/business partners etc. in person. This implies that traffic will increase with growing globalization. So if one wants to reduce carbon output in traffic one of the first things one should think about is how to improve the train system as an alternative to planes. A better website may be a start.

This overcrowded shop window of a stationary caught my attention.

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Today’s post is about one of the rare examples where probably an artist made a discovery before the scientist did.

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This post is a follow up post to some posts (1,2,3) relating to the question of simulation. It is concerned with the question of how “real” a simulation can “feel”.
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just an announcement: The CCC camp starts today at Finowfurt. Here the site with an introductory video by Tim Pritlove et al.

In the last weeks we did a bike trip from Dresden to Dessau. In Dessau we visited the famous Bauhaus, which I had visited a couple of times, but which I hadn’t yet seen in its new colours.

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Here comes the third part and rest of the documentary of the NMI 2007 conference (part I and part II):

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