Aurora
Photos taken today between 19:00 and 19:30 MEZ near Bonn. I didn’t have time to reduce the noise properly, but you get the idea. If the sky is clear where you live, I recommend going out with your camera and a tripod tonight!
Und noch ein Link zu einem Junior-Hobby-Astronomen in Bad Honnef bei Bonn: Space Observer.
Link gefunden im Generalanzeiger Bonn: Selbst Wetter-Guru Kachelmann fragt um Rat
Mathematicians
Ooh, a MetaFilter thread about Paul Erdös, the man who loved only numbers. I read My Brain is open by Bruce Schechter, but I think I’ll also have to check out The Man who Loved Only Numbers by Paul Hoffman.
Links (nicht nur) für die Schule
Weblogs
Thanks to Manila‘s discussion group that requires signing up and logging in, my weblog has not yet been comment-spammed. However, bad people always think of new strategies. The latest seems to be setting up a pseudo-weblog with links leading nowhere, a stolen design and hidden links to p*rn or whatever. Then they spam the referrer lists of weblogs in the hope that their Google ranking will improve.
Jeff noted the referrers and found an explanation and a link to an interesting article about the problem. idly.org: P*rn Sites Hiding Behind Blogs. And there’s also a referrer page to be indexed by search engines. 
Finding matching colo(u)rs
Yet another link for the collection: Colormatch 5K. I previously linked colour scheme chooser, A recipe for color and Martin’s 6-Colormatch.
Personal
Still alive, still busy. I barely have time to spend surfing the web, but I always seem to accumulate a number of noteworthy links… I don’t think I’d know what to do with them if I didn’t have a weblog.
Today is André‘s (27+n)th birthday. Happy Birthday!
Sunrise this morning, around 7:30 am, from our living room window.
H2G2
The Tertiary Phase of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio play is being produced, and a fourth part is going to follow. We have the primary and secondary phases, and I really hope the two new parts will turn out as good as these.
Link via MetaFilter.
Eclipse
There will be a total lunar eclipse during the weekend. The maximum will occur on Sunday, November 9th, at 2:18 GMT+1. The moon enters the earth’s penumbra at 23:15 GMT+1 (the day before) and the inner umbra at 0:32 GMT+1. I talked about lunar eclipses in my 6th grade physics class today. It took the students a while to understand the differences between a new moon and an eclipse, which occurs at full moon. But when they finally got it, one girl asked, “But why isn’t there an eclipse every time the moon is full?” I think the question indicates that she really understood how the eclipse works. I told the students that they should ask their parents to watch at least part of the eclipse with them – I know it will be fairly late for eleven-year-olds, but it’s the weekend, they can sleep in on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to the next lesson (on Monday) to see how many of them actually stayed up and watched.
We also “built” a model of our solar system (just the sun, the earth and the moon) in class today: a marble was the earth, a pinhead represented the moon (about 10 cm away from the earth), and the sun was a swiss ball. We had to go out into the schoolyard in order to have the sun and the earth at the proper distance. I sent one girl all the way across the yard with the sun. After our little experiment was done, she quickly came back to the rest of the group. I told her she was moving faster than the light because it takes photons eight minutes to travel from the sun to the earth. I think she was quite amused by that. 
Science is fun!
Archimedes’ Laboratory (site available in English, French, Italian) is a “geometric puzzle site [that] is designed for open-minded people with a fair amount of curiosity and humility. To solve the perplexing and tricky puzzles that you will find in the following pages, you need a very high IQ, not the usual and controversial Intelligence Quotient, but the ‘Inveniens Quaerendo’ (Latin, discovering by trying) ability. Intelligence is not what you feel or what you know, but a problem solving skill. ”
Link via Mathematische Kleinigkeiten.
Books
Note to self: After the exams, take some time to read The Physicality of Books – A Survey. A lot of authors answer these five questions: 1) What do you most like about the book as a physical object? 2) Do you have any rituals or procedures you go through after acquiring a new (or used) book? 3) Is it necessary for books to exist as physical objects in our increasingly electronic world? If so, why? 4) What recent examples stand out for you as exemplar of well-designed, well-made books? 5) Do you have any memory connected to books that you would like to share?
Wissenschaftliche Weblogs
Es wird höchste Zeit, dass ich die Mathematischen Kleinigkeiten und die Physikalischen Kleinigkeiten mal in meine Bookmarks aufnehme. Aber der Blogtracker zickt seit einigen Wochen ‘rum. Ob ich mal einen vernünftigen RSS-Newsreader brauche?
Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are
New York Times Saturday Profile: Taking the Oxymoron out of ‘German Cuisine’ (free registration required). Wolfram Siebeck is a German cook and restaurant and food critic who says: “Mildness in food – it’s a castration.” (I think that André would agree. )
I often read Siebeck’s food columns in Die Zeit, but I had no idea how big his influence on German cuisine was. The NYTimes gets only one thing wrong: Wolfram Siebeck is not the German equivalent of Martha Stewart.
Diese Woche in der Zeit
Flüchtlinge: Odyssee ins Paradies. “Afrikaner fliehen nach Europa: Eine junge Frau verlässt Nigeria, wandert wochenlang durch die Sahara, steigt in das Schlauchboot eines Schleusers und setzt nach Spanien über. Die Geschichte einer qualvollen Reise.” Von Ariel Hauptmeier.
New Economy: Das Monster. “Die virtuelle Großmacht Google bearbeitet drei Viertel aller Suchanfragen im Internet. Nun planen die Manager einen ungewöhnlichen Börsengang.” Von Ludwig Siegele.
Wirtschaft: Ein Chinese greift an. “Mit Waschmaschinen und Kühlschränken schuf der Arbeitersohn Zhang Ruimin den ersten Multi der Volksrepublik, den Haier- Konzern. Er hat den Ehrgeiz, Siemens zu schlagen.” Von Georg Blume.
Auxologie: Größe zählt. “Ostdeutsche wachsen, Amerikaner schrumpfen. Die Körperlänge verrät viel über den Zustand einer Gesellschaft.” Von Christoph Drösser.
Wissen: Die Einsilbigkeit der Erinnerung. “Chinesen können sich vieles besser merken als Deutsche.” Oder doch nicht?
Leben in Deutschland (5): Wie man sich in Deutschland informiert. “Wir sehen immer mehr fern und lesen immer weniger Zeitung, die Buchlektüre stagniert auf niedrigem Niveau, das Internet holt auf. Und wer etwas auf sich hält, nutzt mehrere Medien – am liebsten gleichzeitig. Eine Programmübersicht.” Von Susanne Gaschke.
Der Artikel behauptet: “Jeder Haushalt besitzt – mindestens – ein Fernsehgerät.” Da muss ich aber widersprechen: Wir sind ein Haushalt, und wir besitzen kein Fernsehgerät.
Leben: Bittere Schokolade. “Wolfram Siebeck ärgert sich über die Bürokraten in der Europäischen Union, die uns mit ihrer Gleichmacherei nicht nur den Genuss verderben: Zusätze in Lebensmitteln können angeblich sogar dumm machen.”
Norwegen: Gut gezielt, Schütze! “Im Süden Norwegens hat Anfang Oktober die Jagdsaison begonnen. Acht Männer und ein Hund sind in Elverum auf der Jagd nach dem Elch der Elche.” Von Claus-Peter Lieckfeld.
Flughafendrehkreuz: Das Wunder von Wahn. “Seit einem Jahr ist der Flughafen Köln/Bonn Drehkreuz für die Billigflieger. Sein Erfolg setzt die Geschäftsführer anderer Flughäfen unter Druck.” Von Andreas Spaeth.
Privathochschule: Good Morning, Bremen! “Spitzenforschung, Studenten aus aller Welt – die private International University brummt. Doch zum Wachsen fehlt das Geld.” Von Michael Schwelien.
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