by Derek Powazek.
I think this one says a lot about what the Internet means to me – and probably you, too. 
Generations. “Don’t undervalue the power of relationships that are established virtually.”
Dodecahedrons
Another link I found over at Zannah: Dodecahedrons.
I’m interested in them because I will probably write my thesis about polyhedra. The site also feates some nice fractals.
Economy of Words
- Pythagorean theorem: 24 words.
- The Lord’s prayer: 66 words.
- Archimedes’ Principle: 67 words.
- The 10 Commandments: 179 words.
- The Gettysburg address: 286 words.
- The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words.
- The US Government regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words.
Found at /usr/bin/girl. I wonder where she found it.
Sparsam?!
Kate led me to a page about a portable dishwasher. Nice little machine. I was checking out the details, and this one caught my eye: “Although it is small in size, it will wash up to 8 fullsize place settings using just under 5 gallons of water.”
5 gallons? Wait a second! That equals 18.95 litres – sounds like quite a lot of water to me. I checked out Miele and found that their full-size dishwashers’ economy program uses 13 litres (3.38 gallons) of water. Some of their machines can be programmed to wash dishes only in the upper part of the machine, and a non-economy program will use 11 litres (2.86 gallons) then. (Here’s the Miele USA page on dishwashers. I took the info from the German site mentioned above.)
I have to admit that Miele is a rather exclusive brand, but other dishwashers made in Germany don’t use more water than theirs. Germany has a system of classifying dishwashers, washing machines, fridges and freezers by the amount of energy (and water) they consume. “A” is best, “F” is worst. The Miele products are mostly rated “A”, but I’ve never seen any machines labeled worse than “C” in a shop.
Mira has written about this a couple of days ago. She talked about washing machines, but I think what she said applies to dishwashers as well.
Still waiting
Jeff has been hanging by a thread for four days now. Poor guy! Being without Internet access is about the worst thing I can imagine! Okay, not really – but once you’re addicted and have a weblog to look after…
After a week of vacation
Sheila is back. Sounds like she had a nice relaxing week. Now it’s back to work for her…
Oh yeah, Brent‘s back too, of course. But he wasn’t able to stay away from his weblog as long as Sheila, obviously. Sheila had a real W w/o C.
Wie geht das mit dem Kalender?
Also gut, aufgrund der vielen Nachfragen:
Für den Kalender gibt es ein Makro, {calendar}, und das kann man irgendwo im Template unterbringen. Eine Frage bei André ergab, daß es im Default Template nicht auftaucht.
Und Bastian, natürlich darfst Du das Wissen gern weiterverbreiten. Je mehr Leute das bei Dir lesen, desto weniger Leute nerven mich mit der Frage! 
One of the first things I noted after coming to Germany was that our washing machine here had the power of a small car and was roughly as sophisticated and complex as a personal computer. The washing machine we bought then is still running, even with the doubled usage the past year thanks to Christopher.
My guess is that water and electricity (and living space) are so much cheaper in the US that consumers don’t really care about being efficient. I wanted to look at http://www.sears.com to check the water usage of typcial American washing machines. It’s not given, not even in the detailed specifications!
I hoped an expert like you would post something about this.
our washing machine here had the power of a small car and was roughly as sophisticated and complex as a personal computer.
Our washing and drying machine has three different cycles, each available in four different water temperatures. Then there are some special programs, like extra tumbling, plus three dryer programs. Oh, and of course all these cycles are available as economic, ecologic, and with extra water. (Seems to me like it has more programs in it than my computer!
)
I have to admit that we always use the same two washing cycles and one drying cycle. Ironic, isn’t it?
I looked around some more at http://compactappliance.com/ and found things like trash compactors and ice machines. They seem so strange to me! I would never have thought that anyone needed them – not even the average American who has an icemaker built into his fridge.
I didn’t even know there were such things as trash compactors. What do you need them for?
But I guess the concept is as strange to me as is the German concept of different kinds of trash: Altpapier, Altglas, Grüner Punkt, Restmüll…
I don’t know why trash compactors are necessary either, since you have these huge trash barrels that get picked up 2 or 3 times a week. Our trash container here is maybe 1/3 as large, and is picked up every 2 weeks.
Christopher’s diapers have about tripled our trash production. I don’t want to even imagine the idea of putting them through a compacter… :-/