February 12 2001

Human genome

Sheila has three links to interesting human genome articles today. Recommended!

Science helps to retreive classic literature

Independent: Digital device reads wealthy Roman’s library of ‘lost’ classics.

“Hundreds of long-lost works of ancient Greek and Latin philosophy, science and literature – possibly including works by Aristotle, Archimedes and Seneca – are about to be rediscovered in what promises to be the most important re-emergence of classical literature and thought since the Renaissance.

American scientists have succeeded in developing a remarkable new high-tech system for reading previously illegible manuscripts. Using digital technology, academics from Brigham Young University near Salt Lake City, Utah, will ‘remaster’ the lost wisdom of the ancients. Classical scholars believe the technology will open up the world’s greatest surviving ancient works which have been illegible because of their poor state of preservation.”

Link via MetaFilter.

Google searches

I’m famous. Duncan says so. grins:

Well, Duncan did a Google search for Andrea, and my site is the #2 hit. But when you search for Frick, I’m not even in the first 100 hits. Well, at least I’m the number one Andrea Frick. Okay, enough ego-surfing for today…

Astronomy

Heavens above is a site that provides info for observing satelites, Mir, the ISS, the Space Shuttle, and “a wealth of other spaceflight and astronomical information”. You can even get maps according to your location and local time!

I think I’ll go ISS and satellite watching tonight…

Geography and more

“In February 2000, the SRTM radar system flew onboard Space Shuttle Endeavour and gathered topographic data over approximately 80% of the land surfaces of the Earth, creating the first-ever near-global data set of land elevations.” Read about it at the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission‘s site (mission). The SRTM measured the elevation every 30 metres and to an accuarcy of about 6 metres. Pretty impressive.

More info can be obtained at the SRTM Update of the German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) (Deutsches Fernerkundungsdatenzentrum).

Links via c’t.

In der aktuellen Ausgabe der c’t (4/2001) gibt es dazu einen ganzen Artikel (Report: Erdvermessung – 3D global; Seite 102 ff), der wirklich sehr lesenswert ist. Leider ist er nicht online verfügbar.

Art? Cool!

“An alternative browsing experience”: See Andrea’s Weblog shreddered. – Go and shredder your own site at Potatoland’s Shredder. Or read about the Shredder here.

Link via Familie Berg.

Community News

“Good stuff coming” at Oliver’s site! A new design and maybe a move to his own server… Maybe he’ll be able to “find a more positive spin on things”, too? Would be nice. Oliver, I’m looking forward to the Far side of my mind‘s rebirth!

More reading

Read the first chapter of The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan.

Link via WannaWrite?.

Reading

Helena describes how she reads books:

“I usually have at least two books on the go, where one of them is the slow read, and the other one is the one that I read straight through. That way I finish about three books before I finish the slow reading book. Oh well, I guess that’s my style.”

That’s exactly what I do. At the moment, I’m reading The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman. That’s the slow one, I started it a few months ago, I think. In the meantime, I’ve read Harry Potter parts three and four, a few other books and now Die glücklichen Inseln Ozeaniens by Paul Theroux, which I will be finishing soon. I wonder how long The Design of Everyday Things is going to last…

Mathematik

Da hat der Schockwellenreiter mal wieder eine schöne Site für mich aufgetan: Polyhedra. Eine mathematische Unterweisung in die fünf platonischen Körper, pardon, in die “fünf regulirten Cörper”, aus dem Jahre Anno, M. D. LXVIII.

Sowas kommt mir doch für meine Examensarbeit gerade recht! Schöne alte Kupferstiche… facehappy:

5 thoughts on “February 12 2001

  1. Max Smith

    I am also reading this now in “slow mode” – it has stretched across “Hagakure, the Book of the Samurai’, “Master Red Hat Linux Visually”. “Web Sites That Suck”, “Designing Usability”, and “Cascading Style Sheets : Designing for the Web” – but I’m still slowly working through it. It’s interesting.

    I just discovered Manila/Frontier (I’m not just a newbie, I’m the Uber-Newbie!) and I enjoy your site. It’s refreshing to see your smiling face after slogging through so much dourness on the web – and your links are always interesting.

    Max

  2. Andrea Frick

    Sounds like you manage to read quite a few books along ‘The Design of everyday things’… but I think it works quite well to read this in ‘slow mode’. It’s not like a novel or thriller where you would forget who is who and what it is all about in the meantime…

    I have learnt one thing from the book: If I ever stand in front of a door and pull it although it is supposed to be pushed, or the other way round, it’s not my fault! This happens so often to me, and people make fun of me for not being able to remember how doors I use every day are working.

    Pah! It’s the designer’s fault!

  3. Max Smith

    Yes! the front doors at my children’s school give absolutely no indication of which side to push in order to exit (you can’t see the hinges and both sides look exactly the same). No matter how many times I go through those doors (5 days a week) I still get it wrong half of the time ( it doesn’t help that I stay up until 01.00 or 02.00 with my studies).

    I lived in Heidelberg for a few years (1985-88), and travelled all over Europe, and I must say that, of all the places I have been, I found the design of products and public spaces to be better in Germany (and Switzerland) than anywhere else – so perhaps you should consider yourself fortunate.

    I do keep about thirty new books around the house and will just pick one up and start reading a section, perhaps never completing it – I find nothing wrong with this. Books are written on so many levels that they can be read in many ways.

    Viel Vergnügen!

  4. Andrea Frick

    I lived in Heidelberg for a few years (1985-88), and travelled all over Europe, and I must say that, of all the places I have been, I found the design of products and public spaces to be better in Germany (and Switzerland) than anywhere else – so perhaps you should consider yourself fortunate.

    So you think I would be bumping into doors even more often if I lived in the USA?

    I do keep about thirty new books around the house and will just pick one up and start reading a section, perhaps never completing it – I find nothing wrong with this. Books are written on so many levels that they can be read in many ways.

    I almost never put a book down before I have completely read it. True, I read several books at one time, but once I start to read a book, I finish it – sooner or later, or perhaps after a year. I think there are less than a dozen books I have started to read but not finished.

  5. Max Smith

    No, Andrea, I don’t think you would bump into doors here because doors would be opened for you – after all, as you said yourself (or at least Duncan did), you’re famous!!

    I’ve been to many weblogs in the past two weeks (it seems I’ve discovered them months behind everyone else), but I still find yours to be the warmest, most welcoming one of them all. Maybe it’s the soothing blue-ness – but I’m betting it’s that smiling picture!

    I am so jazzed about Manila that I have downloaded Frontier 5 and Radio-Userland, and I found the complete “Frontier: The Definitive Guide” (the book is out of print) at the author’s website. Lot’s of late night fun for me – I will never get my schoolwork done!! Have you ever explored RU or Frontier?

    While browsing “Behind the Curtain”, I noticed that you and Andre are Mac users (I am writing this on a “Bronze” G3 Powerbook). This further confirms my impression of you as an extremely intelligent person. I have used Macs since you were 10 years old, Andrea – I bought my first Mac (a 512Ke that I still have) in Heidelberg in 1985. I worked for three years as the service and support manager at an Apple Specialist Reseller and Service Center in the U.S. , and most of the 350 students and faculty in the Art and Design Department I support now are Mac users – so if I can ever be of any assistance, please let me know.

    This is a very rambling message for a discussion thread, perhaps I should send messages of this nature to your email address next time.

    Though it is February 15th in Germany, it is an hour until midnight here – so let me be the last to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day!

    Max

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