randform

We managed our relocation. I overstrained my right hand a bit and had eye problems due to the dust, but finally everything got squeezed into the appartment so that we could hurry to Berlin in order to see relatives and solve some other problems.

The bad thing about germand appartments is that they usually have no built-in closets, so you have to move around all these big armoires (or live out of a suitcase).

We were lucky to find two rather antique closets, which you can carry in parts. One closet was in an attic and covered with cobwebs. The printed letters on its back indicate that it had been under a US Army Requisition Demand right after the war. Seems after it came back from the army the owner didnt like it too much anymore – given its abandonned situation in the attic.

Right now and for the upcoming weeks I am without internet access at home, so basically without internet. Here thus fast a blog post related to the financial crisis.

About 2 weeks ago the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers of the biggest developped economies had met in southern England in order to prepare for the upcoming G20 summit. A “sustained effort” was pledged to end the global recession and to cleanse banks of toxic assets. In particular according to Bloomberg

“Our key priority now is to address the value of assets held on banks’ balance sheets, which are constraining banks’ lending” and damaging economies, the G-20 statement said.
Banks are still hoarding cash after being stung by more than $1.2 trillion of writedowns and losses.”

Meanwhile governments -in particular the US government- are pumping money into the market. For example in Europe the total amount of money has almost doubled within the last 6 years (money supply wikipedia, the Berliner zeitung march 28, 2009 Tagesthema diagram is including 2008 but unfortunately not visible)

And still inflation is low – as if the money would disappear!

And even more mysterious: the pumped-in money meanwhile exceeded the amount of one or two trillion dollars, which were acclaimed as possible losses. And still the money is been hoarded.

(more…)

It’s frosty in munich today.

a short personal note: We will leave the above beautiful garden sight by the end of the month. We were lucky to find a smaller appartment where the kids can still reach their school by bus. It is not easy to find an appartment for rent in munich without spending 2000-3000 Euros for a real estate agent. The appartment is at a rather big road. Unfortunately there is no traffic light in the vicinity and the traffic on that road is blowing too heavily for letting the kids cross that road by themselves. The architecture of the building and some buildings around it are similar to the one in the suburb of Neuaubing. We are on the forth floor so sometimes one can see the Alps.

I just came across these funny videos from the mission of Man System Integration Standards which were mostly shot at skylab. See e.g. this video about how to use paper.

The videos and documents display the problems of finding a well-adapted architecture for space travel. For that the Skylab investigations into anthropometry and biomechanics were apparently necessary.
Similar investigations were also undertaken in Australia. In particular the australian government was recently seeking 2000 volunteers for the ADF Aircrew and Crewstation Anthropometry Project which was organized by the Centre for Applied Anthropometry.

A reader called Hein Kleist wrote:

I find it a little dangerous that you suggest to let problematic banks go bankrupt! Don’t you know that the collapse of Lehman Brothers almost destroyed the world financial system? There could be a chain reaktion of an unknown size!

(more…)

A reader called Ingeborg was asking

>>>”Do you think that teaching did impair your research?”

(more…)

(more…)

Last friday I attended a talk, which was organized by the munich center for nanoscience. The talk was given by Tim Liedl from the Shih Laboratory.

(more…)

A reader was asking in a preceding post:

Thank you for interesting explanation. So you say that high-rank officials who does not like to be critized should better take the pills you mentioned, since they probably have this sickness you describe?

(more…)

The following post is in part an answer to a question in a randform comment.

(more…)