Women
Kate answers Dave’s question. She says women are individual achievers.
I just knew women were smarter! <grin>
Computers and Aquariums
The Schockwellenreiter also has this link to The Mac Aquariums. I think I’ve seen the site before, but I couldn’t find a link on my pages, so I guess I didn’t mention it before.
What is Education?
I like Craig‘s quote of the day:
“Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.” – B. F. Skinner
(Skinner? I heard about him and Behaviorism in a lecture on the psychology of learning. Dark memories…)
Poor Craig – it’s still hot in Texas. Meanwhile, the weather forecast for our region has been improving. We are supposed to get some sun and warmer weather on Wednesday, the temperature increasing to over 30 or 35 °C (around 90 F) next weekend!
LISA – Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
Ever heard about it? Here is the LISA Home Page of the NASA. What is LISA? (Part of the LISA crew works in Hanover, Germany.)
With LISA, scientists hope to be able to “hear” the gravitational waves emitted from black holes and maybe even an “echo” of the big bang!
Last week, the Third LISA Syposium was held at the Max-Planck-Institut for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam, Germany. Here is a press release with attached information on gravitational waves and detectors. (Scroll down a bit.) (Den Artikel gibt’s auch in Deutsch.)
Were you wondering why I’m so very interested in the LISA project? Professor Karsten Danzmann is the leader of the European LISA group, and I attended his two year course called “Introduction to Experimental Physics” while studying in Hanover (1994 to 1996). Of course, he would talk about “his” project from time to time. He’s very enthusiastic about it, and has even named his daughter Lisa. (Or was it the other way round? 
)
Hier ist übrigens die LISA Home Page Hannover. In Hannover wird (wurde?) übrigens auch ein Gravitationswellendetektor gebaut, aber wesentlich kleiner natürlich: GEO 600. Der ist sogar eins der weltweiten Expo-Projekte.
In Potsdam fand gerade das 3. Internationale LISA-Symposium statt: “Ein Klang wie von Pikkoloflöten und Tuba”.
What are Weblogs?
Hey! The Curmudgeon will be famous!
He is featured in this article about weblogs: Staying Afloat on Weblogs. Well, Dave Winer is mentioned as well, and the whole ETP and Weblogs.Com community, too.
Link via Schockwellenreiter.
And Al, thanks for linking to me, but I’m not everybody…
The Morning After
After it has rained all morning, I went to see what was left of whatever building was burning last night. Since I never really noticed it before, I’m not sure how large it was, but it seems it was a wooden building of a company that makes scaffolding. Presumably, they stored something wooden inside because the hole thing burned like tinder.
Because the whole property is surrounded by fence, I was not able to get a very close view; this is all I could manage.
Note the bent iron beams – the fire must have been very hot!
Ist Wal-Mart gefährlich?
Scheint so. Über ihre Strategien liest man ja so manches. Der Generalanzeiger schreibt: OB Dieckmann will Wal-Mart in Friesdorf nicht zulassen.
I don’t know… are they selling guns? :-)
Wal-Mart has the reputation for ruining inner-city retail. Strangely enough, in Hamburg they took over a couple of marode inner-city hypermarts and have made them, well, at least tolerable.
From what I hear from Frauke about high-profile American retail/restaurant firms trying to get permits from German local officials, it takes a lot of ‘Community Relations’ (sweet-talking to politicians), and even then it doesn’t always work. Wal-Mart had better have a lot of patience.
The news reminded me of an article I’ve read in Die Zeit. Unfortunately, I can’t find it in their online archive.
The article was about how Wal-Mart has begun to open shops all over Germany (Europe?) and ruined some shopping areas or other shops by being able to offer their goods cheaper and thus attracting all the costumers.
It seems that the same thing might happen in Bad Godesberg, which is suffering from the loss of costumers because the government – and almost all the embassies – moved to Berlin.
It’s good to hear that they’ve been able to revive/improve some marts in Hamburg; maybe they’ll agree to open their shop in the Hertie complex in Bad Godesberg after all?!
André told me that McDonald’s had a similar problem in Celle, his home town. He writes about it here.
From what I hear from Frauke about high-profile American retail/restaurant firms trying to get permits from German local officials, it takes a lot of ‘Community Relations’ (sweet-talking to politicians), and even then it doesn’t always work.
This sounds familiar. In my hometown, McDonald’s wanted to start a restaurant on this street. They finally got the permission in the late Eighties, but from what I heard they were not allowed to put up any neon signs or to modify the front of the building in any way. I think it’s the fourth or fifth building on the left in that picture, not really visible anymore.
The town apparently learnt its lesson when Karstadt was allowed to build a department store from scratch in the Fifties or Sixties. It’s visible in this aerial view as the big building with the gray roof a little right of the center. This concrete building
really hurts the eye between all those historic half-timbered houses.
Frauke knows the restaurant on Zöllnerstraße quite well, as well as the owner-operator there. I don’t want to talk about her job too much, but she said it was OK for me to say that particular building is a historical preservation nightmare! Maintaining the original building and keeping it structurally sound is very expensive.