Die Familie ist komplett

Heute sind Martins Sohn Raphael und seine Frau Sandra aus dem Krankenhaus entlassen worden.

Oh happy day!

Quote of the day

If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign? Albert Einstein

My desk is fairy cluttered.

A solid liquid?

I’ve just discovered Silly Putty. Sounds and looks like a lot of fun, even for grown-ups.

And the stuff is celebrating it’s 50th birthday this year. How come I’ve never heard of it before? Is this something every kid in the US knows and plays with?

And – is it available in Germany, too? I might want to buy some to do a few scientific experiments.

Ich suche schon, aber Hinweise, ob/wo man Silly Putty in Deutschland bekommt, nehme ich gerne entgegen!

And happy 17th wedding anniversary to Frauke and Scott!

Hey, it’s Al‘s birthday today! Happy birthday to you! And many happy returns! Keep getting wiser instead of older! ;-)

Alles Gute und viel Glück!

Today’s top story in Germany

Die Regierung will Abgaben auf Computer erheben: zu lesen auf Seite 1.

Report: Germany plans ‘Internet tax’. (Link via array.)

The tax is intended “to ensure that the authors of cultural products available on the Internet are properly rewarded.

Similar levies already exist in Germany on devices whose main function is that of copying, such as scanners, photocopiers and fax machines. Depending on the power of the machine involved, the taxes range from 75-600 marks ($30-$275).”

This might increase the prices for computers about 30%. I wonder if people will then buy their computers abroad – which is quite easy nowadays, thanks to the internet.

Spicy Noodles

André has finished his redesign of Spicy Noodles. On his site, a random photo from our Trip to the USA 1999 is displayed, complete with a link to the appropriate page of the journal on my site.

André says his goal for September is to post something every day.

German courts keep Potter fans waiting

A few kids started to translate the latest Harry Potter book from English to German and posted it to the inoffizielle Harry Potter Community. The German publisher, Carlsen Verlag, took legal action. CNN has details.

Link via Garret.

Manila – Blades of grass

Dave is collecting screenshots from people using Manila here and here. It’s interesting to see how Manila looks on different people’s screens and what they like about Manila. I submitted a screenshot of the pref page that configures the search engine because I think it is one of the most important features of Manila. How else would I be able to find anything ever again? I use the search engine on my own and on other people’s Manila sites several times a day.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language

said George Bernard Shaw. Here is a Dictionary that translates British to American English and the other way round. It uses frames, but in this case they are really useful because you get the American meaning of a word in the upper frame and the British meaning in the lower frame so you can compare them. Neat.

Link via /usr/bin/girl.

Summer?!

Craig reports they have 112°F (about 45°C) in Austin today, the hottest day since they keep records about the temperature. Wow! And although he has been living in Austin for 20 years, he still expects September to be cooler than the previous months.

Yeah, Craig, it does get cooler in September over here in Germany. It can still be nice and warm, but it’s usually cooler than in July and August. However, it doesn’t make much of a difference this year since we didn’t have a real summer anyway. Somehow I feel cheated because we didn’t get a summer – I want my money back!

On the other hand, I’m not sure I could stand temperatures above 100°F or 40°C for more than a few days. After the day we spent in Death Valley last year, where we had about 50°C, and I felt horrible. I guess I would gone mad, had we not had an airconditioned car into which I could flee from the heat.

Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary, Sheila and Brent!

New designs everywhere

Hey, what happened over at NetDyslexia? They became NDX – and they’ve got a cool new layout!

“The test version of our redesign is up. Let us know how it works on the PC. It looks okay on NC 4.7 and IE 5 on the Mac and it renders extremy quickly.”

Yep, I use IE 5 (Mac) – it looks great and loads fast, too!

As a mathematician, of course I like the rulers on the left. They provide an objective means of measurement how much blogging the NetDyslectics do each day!

A new picture on every visit…

André is working on a redesign of Spicy Noodles. I especially like the spiky i-dots on his banner.

Why do you run a weblog?

Craig:

“People ask me why I run this weblog. Most of the time I say I don’t know or because it’s fun. But the longer I run it, the more obligated I feel to keep it going. This is a double edged sword. I have found that usually, lurking somewhere near obligation is guilt. But, on the other edge, guilt is usually lurking somewhere near fun too! So why do I run BookNotes? I don’t know, because it’s fun, I guess.“

Yep, I agree! What would my readers say if I decided to give up my weblog?!

Astronomy

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.” I like that!

Susan found it on the stupidity page.

The Expo

Frauke, Scott and Christopher wen to the Expo on Sunday. Read about their impressions here and here. I agree with their strategy: Avoid the long lines! There’s so much to see without having to wait for hours.

Hennen rennen

We went to the movies tonight and saw Chicken Run. It was great fun!

I especially liked Mac, the hen with the glasses that did all the math. In the German synchronization, she had a Dutch accent!

Update: Duncan informs me that Mac is a Scottish hen and had a Scottish accent in the original version.

Zu Hennen rennen habe ich auch eine lesenswerte Seite auf deutsch gefunden: Chickenrun.de. Dort findet man unter Making of auch ein paar Hintergrundinfos zu den Knetehühnern. Wer das Flash-Intro überspringen möchte, kann gleich hier klicken. Weitere Infos gibt es auf dieser Seite.

Mein liebstes Huhn war eindeutig Mac, gesprochen von Aapril Hailer. Die Brille, die wirren Notizen, und dann auch noch der niederländische Akzent – einfach klasse! Da kann ich mich der guten Beurteilung des Schockwellenreiters nur anschließen!

Happy Holiday!

Hal mentions that it’s Labor Day in the USA today. Hey, I totally forgot about that! On last year’s Labor Day (which was September 6), André and I went rappelling on the Mormon Rocks near Hesperia/Apple Valley with Jennifer (my student exchange partner) and her family. In the afternoon, we all went to her grandparents-in-law for a family meeting and barbeque.

Have a nice day, everybody over there!

Weblogs – the return of the private

If you’d like to read the m@trix article (with statements from Dave Winer and two Austrian bloggers) in English, Dan Peters ran it through a translation engine. The translation is here.

Link for the translation via Dave.

Der Artikel, über den hier und da schon zu lesen war, ist in der m@trix erschienen: Weblogs – die Rückkehr der Privaten; von Mariann Unterluggauer.

“Wer nicht updatet wird auch nicht wahrgenommen” lautet ein Grundsatz unter Webloggern. Unterstrichen wird dieser gute Vorsatz noch dadurch, dass es mittlerweile Filter gibt, die nur diejenigen Sites auflisten, auf denen sich auch wirklich etwas getan hat. Netdyslexia bietet zum Beispiel so einen Monitor an. Dort kann man sich auch als Weblogger eintragen lassen. Demnach gibt es in Österreich davon gerade acht, in Deutschland sind es 13. Von einem neuen Hype kann dabei also noch nicht gesprochen werden. Zumindest nicht in Europa. Die Community ist noch überschaubar, und man kennt sich.

Daß es in Deutschland nur 13 Weblogger geben soll, glaube ich mal nicht. Zum Beispiel gibt es den Wellenbrecher-Webring mit momentan 42 deutschsprachigen Teilnehmern. Die meisten bezeichnen ihre Weblogs allerdings als Online-Diary, und bei vielen stehen persönliche Erlebnisse im Vordergrund.

Umso erstaunlicher ist, daß viele kein Weblog-Tool (à la Manila, Blogger) benutzen, sondern ihren Code von Hand stricken. Respekt!

I played around with PhotoShop and came up with this banner ad for my site:

Egosurfing

Using this feature of Weblogs.com, I found links to my site on Dreadnet, Ken Fletcher’s Web Base and EGM Werbegrafik (Ernst Michalek). Hey there! I don’t know you (yet) but it’s nice that you link to me anyway!

And now I linked to them, too…

Around the world…

Hey, Scott, Frauke and Christopher went to Israel – um, I mean, to the Expo. They plan to go again – just like me! When I visit the Expo again, I will look out for a little kid with a cow pullover and German/American parents.

News from Radio UserLand

How to create a weblog with Radio UserLand.

Oh no, more things to play with…

Refridgerator Poetry

I don’t know why, but I love fridge poetry. I wish we had a fridge large enough for that. Now Garret shared this link with us: Browser Poetry. Yay!

Clouds in a bottle and other weird and interesting stuff

Bizarre Stuff:

“This site is an ever growing warehouse of the kinds of projects some of the more demented of us tried as young people, collecting in one place many of the classic, simple science projects that have become part of the collective lore of amateur science. It is a sort of warped semi-scientific cookbook of tricks, gimmicks, and pointless experimentation, concoctions, and devices, using, for the most part, things found around the house. These are the classics. Strange goo, radios made from rusty razor blades, crystal gardens… amateur mad scientist stuff.”

Zannah linked to the cloud in the bottle.

Grasshopper

I found the link to this cool picture on Q. Really cool!

New Zealand, Australia, USA

Petra Eichstaedt spent eight months in these countries in 1998 and took beautiful pictures! The site is in German (Neuseeland, Australien, USA), but since it consits mainly of pictures, the language doesn’t matter. Just click on one of the countries and then on the arrow to go to the next photo. They’re beautiful!

Wozu die Rundfunkgebühren gut sind

In der Zeit Nr. 36 vom 31. 8. 2000: Die Quoten-Idioten – Warum ARD und ZDF die Zuschauer verachten; von Jens Jessen.

Gut, daß wir keinen Fernseher haben.

Abschied vom Erfinder von Donald Duck

Auch in der Zeit: Der Schnabel der Welt – Zum Tod des “guten Zeichners” Carl Barks; von Daniel Kothenschulte.

One year ago…

… André and I started on our trip to the USA! I can’t believe that a whole year has passed since then.

I wish we could go again this year, but I’ve already started working on my thesis, and André (see yesterday) is going back to university to finish his physics diploma. That means that we will both be busy for at least the next year.

Update: I read that Hal likes the picture (click on it if you want to see a larger version of it). Yes, I actually think it’s the best picture of the 800+ we took during our trip. And this picture was taken by André.

In case you want to know, I think the second best picture is either this one of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or the “angry sky” in the Painted Desert. André says he likes the sunset pictures at Mono Lake best.

Den USA-Bericht gibt es natürlich auch auf deutsch. Entweder direkt hier, oder die einzelnen Tage unter denselben URLs wie die englische Version, nur mit “/german” zwischen “/usa” und dem Tag.

Soda vs. Pop

Sheila has been assimilated by Brent, the friendly borg. She calls it “soda”.