Last day of the year

2004 is almost over. The year has been exciting for me – starting a new job, moving to a new town – , but also quite stressful, at least since I started teaching full time in the end of August. I hope that I’ll have less stress and more time in 2005 – time for myself and my hobbies, time to spend with friends, time for outings and to travel. I know that I won’t have a lot more time for these things than I had in the past couple of months, but I will try to use my time better and procrastinate less.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends and have a great start in 2005! See you next year!

Traveling

If you think that traveling by bike is too uncomfortable, how about a Couch bike? It’s exactly what you think it is – a bike for two with a couch to sit on.

Link via MetaFilter.

“Picturing America’s National Parks

Quang-Tuan Luong became the first person to photograph all 58 US national parks in 2002 and continues to do so, with over 3,600 photographs of them online. Last month, Scott Parker completed his two-year project of visiting all the national parks and documenting them in paint and pastel.”

Also found on MetaFilter.

Ah, the memories of childhood

Lots of people have contributed to this MetaFilter thread about dangerous things that kids do. The stories range from hilariously funny to “Oh my, and they’re still alive?”

Physik und Mathematik (nicht nur für die Schule)

Bei Experimentalchemie.de kann man einen Spektrometer-Bausatz günstig bestellen. Das Gerät zerlegt das Licht spektral mittels eines Gitters und ermöglicht die Bestimmung der Wellenlänge bzw. Frequenz der Spektrallinien.

Seilnacht.com ist eine Site über naturwissenschaftliches Arbeiten und bietet didaktische Medien u. a. zu Farben, chemischen Experimenten, Periodensystem und Mineralogie.

Und für den bastelfreudigen Mathematiker in der Vorweihnachtszeit: der Fröbelstern auf Mathematische Basteleien. The site is bilingua, so you can also find the Froebel Star here.

Speaking of the art of paper folding: Check out this MetaFilter thread about modular Origami.

Hörbücher

Hörbücher kann man bei Vorleser.net kostenlos herunterladen oder gegen geringe Gebühr selbst zusammenstellen und auf CD gebrannt bestellen. Da ist bestimmt was für die nächste lange Autofahrt dabei…