randform

(more…)

(more…)

We are moving again, so I fastly took some pictures of our appartment house here in Fukuoka. I felt I should report about the housee. What is so interesting about it? Well it is definitely not so pretty and some of the neighbouring facades are in architectural terms much nicer (see images). Some of the buildings are actually due to some international architectural competition which took place here in the neighbourhood.

However despite being rather unpretty there is something clever about the building, which is – the buildings temperature regulation. The building has deep front south-west balconies, which provide a lot of shade. But due to big windows the rooms inside – on the front side – are lighter than one would imagine (Being amidst packing I preferred not to show you pictures from the appartment inside..;)…it actually seems to look messier and messier every time I enter it…as if a taifun walks through it while I’m gone – just joking :O). The appartment extends through the whole building, i.e. the entry is on the north-east side. The north-east side has giant concrete fortifications against earthquakes, which are sometimes forming little open chimneys. The wind direction is almost parallel to the buildings main axis (i.e. rather perpendicular to the appartments), with a slight tilt towards south. As a result you dont have strong drafts inside the appartment, but if you leave the doors and windows open there is always a nice air circulation coming from the side of the rather cool concrete fortifications. Consequently, only few people in the building need an electric air condition – despite summer temperatures which may reach almost 40 degrees celsius.

Of course the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum is not the Tate Modern (just already by its size), however as it is located on top of a big building it shares with the Tate Modern the property to have a coffee bar with big windows and magnificienz views.

Recently I had the problem to find an appropriate work place i.e. the math department and library are still in the entry lane of Fukuoka airport, the appartment was occupied and there is no silent cafe anywhere around here. Hence for working I decided to go to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum – I knew that it is a rather tranquill place with this breathtaking sight on the dark Fukuoka mountains.

However last time the cafe was -due to vacation time- full with kids laughter and their whirling around, so that I actually didnt get much work done, or in other words instead of focusing on math I was rather procastinating and staring out of the windows or at what was happening around me.

Not very efficent. I know. Maybe I am a bit hypersensitive to noise and disturbances.

Other people may have other (and probably more efficent) ways to procastinate.

E.g. Scott Aaronson of the blog Shtetl-optimized had recently -as his way to procastriate- created a scatterplot, which he calls “The Pareto curve of freedom”.

(more…)

but the one at Wall street is said to cost estimated 900 to 1400 billion dollars at least so far while the LHC is only 4.6 to 9.2 billion dollars. I’d rather see scientists play with the money here…

a bit strange humour froma shirt company

The revelation of revolting food: “Wer hat das schoenste Gemuese im Land?” pastell on paper, artwork by Matter Bahri

The recent (partially rather violent) food crisis has shed some light on the conflicts to be expected if resources are getting even scarcer.

(more…)

(more…)