Monthly Archives: October 2000

October 20 2000

Math

I’m working my way through elliptic functions now… Here are graphs of the Weierstrass Elliptic Function and its derivative.

Weierstrass function:

Weierstrass derivative:

Some links:

Coke discussion

There are some postings about Coca Cola in the discussion group, both in German and English. The latter is not just about Coke, but also about the upcoming presidential elections in the US:

“After reading the comments about Coke in the schools made in July and September it reminds me, again!, of how incredibly conservative and brainwashed we Americans are. Regarding Coke and Pepsi in the schools, it clearly makes good sense to try to protect ourselves and our kids from destructive habits and influences. However, here in the US most have lost the perspective of how much the corporations control our lives (and thoughts).

[…]

It shows a fundamental difference, I think, between the US, the knowledge and viewpoint, and the rest of the Western World. Most Americans have no idea how conservative they really are.

Comments please!

Thanks for your comment, Garret!

Get well soon!

Frauke, Scott and Christopher are back from their trip to the US, but it seems they all caught bronchitis and stomach flu.

And Garret is still ill…

Get well, all of you!

Did Adam and Eve have navels?

Garret links to a Salon review of the book “Did Adam and Eve have Navels?” by Martin Gardner. Sounds like a book I’d like to read!

October 19 2000

Ground zero

I forgot to link yesterday… Susan has a great story, Light Unspeakable, and interesting photos, Ground Zero. Go and read and look!

Spare the homework, educate the child

Craig says his kids have too much homework. His daughter Leigh Ann, 11 years old an in 6th grade, has an hour and a half or two a day. Whoa!

I remember I used to have that much homework, but that was in 10th grade and above! Plus, school in Germany ends at around 1 pm, so there’s more time to do them.

Um acht Uhr in die Uni? – Warmduscher!

Sean, falls es dich tröstet: Mir ist gestern sowas ähnliches passiert. Die Vorlesung war zwar erst um zehn, fiel aber wegen der Eröffnung des akademischen Jahres aus, hätte ich mir also denken können. Das tollste ist noch, daß ich besagte Vorlesung vor zwei Jahren schon mal gehört habe und jetzt nur nochmal hingehen will, um mein Gedächtnis aufzufrischen – und das des Profs, denn bei ihm schreibe ich eine Examensklausur… wink:

Aber wo ich schon mal in der Uni war, habe ich wenigstens noch was getan – mehrere Profs in der Sprechstunde besucht und – wie immer – die Mathe-Bibliothek besucht.

No flip today?

Almost… but today has still 78 minutes left.

Why does a day only have 24 hours?

Today I sure wish for more…

I spent too much of the morning at the Prüfungsamt (office for the teacher exams I’m taking), trying to straighten out some things concerning my Examen. I have the impression that nobody really knows how the exams are supposed to work. There are old rules, new rules, rules deciding which set of rules apply when to whom – and nobody seems to really know them all. Last time I was there, I was told that if I want the new rules for my exams, I have to apply for them. Which I did today. But today I’m told I didn’t have to apply for them because they would apply to me anyway!

So it seems I wasted a couple of hours yesterday and today…

Sigh. I spent the rest of the day at the math library, once more studying a book that I’m not able to borrow and take home. At least it’s more fun than last time because the book was written in the 1950s and I’m able to understand it much better and more easily than the one from 1890.

You are asking whether I have anything interesting to tell you? Sorry, not today. Other than that it seems there are no more obstacles that could prevent me from taking my exams, nothing interesting happened today.

Am I hot or not?

Since this seems to be the latest hit on some weblogs, I’m going to contribute my share of links as well… Am I hot or not? is a site where people submit photos of themselves and others rate them. Yes, it’s that interesting.

Yesterday I heard on the radio that two DJs of our favorite radio station submitted photos of themselves to be rated. They are Volker Janitz and Michael Haas. Since then, they’ve been boasting about their ratings – one got 2.4, the other 1.9 out of 10. Yeah. I think this one‘s pretty cool.

Wo Du wolle?

Und falls sich irgendjemand dafür interessiert, der beliebte SWR3-Radio-Comic Taxi Sharia hat natürlich auch eine eigene Homepage – aber auf der heißt es “No Flash – no Gags”, und mit der Anmerkung “Der Macromedia Flash-Player ist seit Jahren Standard für aufwendige grafische Animationen im Internet.” wird man dazu aufgefordert, das Plugin herunterzuladen. Seit Jahren Standard, soso…

Hey, dafür kann man sich da einen Gag der aktuellen Woche anhören. Die Tonqualität ist zwar nicht so gut wie im Radio, aber besser als nix, wenn ich Taxi Sharia wieder mal im Radio verpaßt habe… grins:

Coca Cola-Rezept geknackt

Das meldet heute der Schockwellenreiter. Hat er bei Spiegel online gelesen. Ach was, das war doch nie geheim. Auf SWR3 habe ich heute gehört, daß das Rezept gar nicht geheim sein kann, weil ja überall auf der Welt Coca Cola hergestellt wird. Und es wurde sogar im Radio vorgelesen. Nur konnte ich es leider auf der SWR3-Site nicht finden.

October 18 2000

Archimedes

Modern technology is used to make an overwritten text by Archimedes visible: Gazing Upon an Erased Treasure. (New York Times, free subscription required.) The book has been lost since the 1920, re-appeared in 1998 and was put up for auction by Christie’s: Ancient Archimedes Text Turns Up, and It’s for Sale.

The book is about 1,000 years old and is the oldest known copy of a book by Archimedes, who wrote it 2,300 years ago. Around 200 years after it had been written, it was erased and overwritten by a monk because parchment was so expensive then.

Link via Garret.

Friday the 13th

Last friday I said the 13th is more often a Friday than any other weekday, but I couldn’t find it on the web. The Schockwellenreiter found it for me (see the German quote below):

The weekdays repeat every 400 years because the leap years are the same every 400 years. If you count the weekdays of each 13th of a month, you find that 688 13th are a Friday, while the other weekdays appear only 684 to 687 times.

Guten Morgen…

Owei, ich glaube, ich brauche eine Brille. Schon heute, nur drei Tage zu spät, entdeckte ich beim Schockwellenreiter einen Link, den er am Sonntag für mich gepostet hat…

Und dabei ist das ein cooler Link: Freitag, der 13. aus Sicht der Mathematik. Da steht genau das drin, wonach ich gesucht hatte:

“Nach unserem Kalender folgt auf drei gewöhnliche Jahre von 365 Tagen Länge fast immer ein Schaltjahr mit 366 Tagen. Alle 400 Jahre wiederholt sich die gleiche Anfolge von gewöhnlichen Jahren und Schaltjahren. Hemme zählte deshalb für einen Zeitraum von 400 Jahren nach, wie oft der 13. ein Freitag ist. Dabei ergab sich, dass der 13. insgesamt 688-mal auf einen Freitag fällt, aber nur 684- bis 687-mal auf jeden der anderen Wochentage.”

Vielleicht kann ich den Link am nächsten Freitag, dem 13., recyceln…

Danke, Jörg!

October 17 2000

And…

… it was Martin‘s last day at his old job today. It seems he has a few weeks off before starting his new job on November 1st. Yay for Martin!

Manila

The discussion group has – or can have – a new look!

I guess I’ll have to take a closer look at the new prefs page for the discussion group… tomorrow. I’m still busy doing math. Still? Actually, I didn’t really get started until 8 pm today, and now it’s almost 11 pm. Oh well.

Neues vom ‘Traveling salesman’-Problem?!

Näheres in diesem Heise-Newsticker-Artikel: Informatik-Problem P=NP möglicherweise geknackt.

Update: Die NetDyslexen haben dazu einen Kommentar, siehe hier: “Plotnikov writes bullshit!”

A brief history…

of the internet. I found this on in The future of the internet, also on Discover.Com.

The end…

Discover.Com: 20 ways the world could end. The author, Corey Powell, talks about several natural or human-triggered disasters and even alien invasion! Maybe the author has read too many sci-fi stories…

Link via blackholebrain.

Benjamin Blümchen

I think this is the strangest thing I’ve encountered so far – much better than the weirdest search requests in referrer logs…

A while ago, I said something about Benjamin Blümchen, who is a speaking elephant that is well-known to German kids.

Today, I received a message from a German company via email:

Urgent inquiry for Bejamin Blümchen toys

Dear Sirs,

We are an international trading company, mainly serving the European industry.

The [company name] purchases globally on own account and then resells the products to various clients. Our aim is to source globally and to offer our clients the best prices worldwide.

From one of our own or rented databases we have retrieved your address as potential supplier of the product(s) we would like to purchase this time. If you can promptly give us your very best quote you might be chosen as the supplier we have been looking for as early as next week.

At the moment we are looking for every kind of Benjamin Blümchen articles. […]

And they asked me to let them know if I received the message in error…

Update: Martin got the same email! And why? Because he talked about my posting on his weblog…

October 16 2000

Bloghop?

I found this link in my referrals and looked it up to see who had linked to me. Turns out I’m listed at BlogHop. How did I end up there? And even twice?!

Each of my entries got one rating so far. I wonder who rated it…

Oops, I just realized that if you search their blogs for Andrea, you get four results: two links to this blog, one to bleep, and one to a blog I sort of accidently created on Weblogs.com a while ago… So I assume they found at least a large portion of their listed blogs over at Weblogs.Com.

star: It’s Garret‘s birthday today. Happy Birthday Garret!!! star:

And get well soon! Tell the hedgehog to go hibernate…

Pokémon

Wetten dass Pokemon: Unglaublich… In der letzten Wetten dass..?-Sendung ist der siebenjährige Benedict Bier Wettkönig geworden. Er hat gewettet, daß er alle Pokémon-Karten auswendig kann, d.h. er kennt anhand der offiziellen Numerierung alle 151 Pokémons, und zwar nicht nur deren Namen, sondern auch deren Typ, Größe, Gewicht, Eigenschaft und Entwicklungsstufe.  

Gerade habe ich ein kurzes Interview mit ihm im Radio gehört. Er war heute wieder normal in der Schule, aber noch ganz fertig von der Wetten dass..?-Party am Samstag. Benedict plant schon die nächste Wette: Dann will er alles über Formel 1 auswendig lernen, “Statistiken und so”.

Das seltsame ist, daß sein älterer Bruder 1997 auch schon bei Wetten dass..? mitgemacht hat. Da fragt man sich doch, ob das alles auf dem Mist der Kinder gewachsen ist, oder ob die Eltern da ihre Finger im Spiel haben…

German and the developing mind

A couple of days ago, I received an email from Terry Henert, a reader of my blog, on German and the developing mind. I asked him to post it on the discussion group, so you can all share your opinion. Besides, I’m not really an expert on brain development, so I thought the discussion would be a better place to talk about this that private email.

“Here’s something I’ve been wondering about for a long time and it deals with German as a language and it’s effect on the developing mind, mainly of children. It may seem pretty “off-the-wall” but there might be something we can learn here. Besides, I think it is more fun to try to find things to discover when we don’t know if there is anything to discover.”

Please have a look at his thoughts and share your opinion! Are any of the experts here? Frauke? Scott?

Famous?!
Friends of Jezebel's Mirror
I’ve submitted a photo from the Expo to Friends of Jezebel’s mirror. If you’d like to see it, it’s here. (This is the URL of the frame with my photo; your browser should load the complete set of frames after a second or two.)