Summer!

Ah, we had a wonderful warm and sunny day today. I spent the afternoon lying in the garden, reading Amusing ourselves to death by Neil Postman. It takes a while to read it because I take notes since the book is on the must-read-list for my exams.

Meanwhile, I have decided that the National Geographic’s Guide ot the National Parks of the United States is what I want. Thanks to Jim Stegman for recommending it!

Also, I think I might want to have a look at the National Geographic’s Guide to the State Parks, a book about the 200 best state parks from all 50 states.

Beauty on the web

I received some very nice emails from Ciara, who pointed me to AfriCam, the world’s first virtual game reserve! In Ciara’s opinion, it’s the world’s best webcam, and I would like to agree with her… Her description sounds pretty impressive, but unfortunately my browser (IE 5 on MacOS 9) freezes every time I click on a link at AfriCam. There seems to be a problem with JavaScript.

By the way, there seem to be more interesting sites on Ciara’s Áilleacht (which is Irish for Beauty).

I especially like Mysterious Places. See the Hidden Canyons.

Whoa, and look at the Buckskin Gulch Virtual Tour. Amazing! I think these are some of the best photos I’ve ever seen on the web.

More nice photos can be found at California Pictures.

Thanks for sharing these beautiful sites with us, Ciara!

I need a new toy^h^h^h computer

I think I know what I want for my birthday now: this! Then I won’t have to borrow André’s computer any more. The cheapest model costs DM 3,499 at the Apple store. Hmmm… mal seh’n, ob Cyberp*rt das noch unterbietet.

Astronomy

Who said science does nothing have in common with music? Listen Closely: From Tiny Hum Came Big Bang explains that scientists have been able to detect microwave radiation from the very first moment the universe existed.

Link via Mollie.

Community

Good luck to your brother Nick, Mike!

Aw, Jeff, what a pity. I hope you’ll find a new job soon!

Yay, Christopher can walk now. Here’s a photo to prove it.

Yes, Garret, do come to Germany! There are lots more sights beside zeppelins, for example in Bonn!

By the way, I would like to fly in a zeppelin, too.

More great photos from Hongkong at Defenestration Corner.

National Parks

I’m still looking for a book about the National Parks in the USA and am thankful for any tips. Please see this thread.

Playing with words

I just found the Assoziationsblaster, German for “Associativity-O-Blast”.

“The Assoziations-Blaster is an interactive text network. Anyone, including you, is allowed to contribute to the text database. And all the texts inside this database are connected automatically in real time.

You can not browse through all the texts in a linear way. Instead you jump from one text to another depending on their connections, revealing new meanings and associations.
“

I especially like the Web-Blaster which shows any web page with lots of links. Here’s my site web-blasted.

Random information I found there: The most powerful invention must surely be the book. If not the form, the idea that information could be stored and shared independent of a single person’s memory. So true…

Die deutsche Version gibt’s unter http://www.assoziations-blaster.de/, natürlich auch mit Web-Blaster (meine Site geblasted).

The Lord of the Rings

Imladris is a site with news about the LotR movie. If you’re among those who can hardly wait until the first movie is released, go and have a look! They have all kinds of information and some photos as well.

Link via Garret.

Reading

“If All of Rochester Read the Same Book”: Book sparks student debate, unifies community. Sounds like an interesting project – and an interesting book: A lesson before dying by Ernest J. Gaines.

Link via Garret.

Sad news

Two days ago, Susan’s grandfather died at the age of 100 years. And although I’ve never met him (or Susan) in person, I feel like I knew him at least a bit through a Lake George Diary and other stories.

Our thoughts are with you and your family, Susan.

Endspurt

André posted photos from the last three days of his trip to Cornwall and tells about his journey home.

US National Parks

I’m looking for a book about all the National Parks in the USA. It should be an overview of all the parks with descriptions and some facts about the size and location of the parks, when to go, what to do there etc. I’ve searched several online bookstores and looked at the National Park Service site as well, but all I found was the National Geographic’s Guide to the National Parks of the United States (a newer version of which is available from Amazon). Maybe you could help me out?

Do you know this book, and can you recommend it? Or do you know another book about the National Parks that’s worth checking out? Your recommendations in the discussion group or via email will be greatly appreciated!

More photos

André posted four pages of photos today. On Moday, April 2, Pauline and André went to the Isles of Scilly, which are very beautiful.

Sunday

The weekend will be over in less than half an hour, and I didn’t manage to write anything here, besides pointing out André’s pictures which you’d probably have found by yourselves. I seem to be in a phase where nothing is happening that’s worth posting here… I hope that will pass soon. But not really much is happening here anyway. I’m slowly reading through some of the books I’m supposed to read for my exams in August, and aside from that, I haven’t been doing much. Even the weather has been boring, but it’s supposed to get warmer and sunnier over the next few days. I’m looking very forward to that!

Happy Birthday!

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Gabi!

Around the world

Lots of travel photos out there! David Singer takes us to Hongkong, while André has photos from Lanhydrock and Fistral Beach in Newquay.

And by the way, André has an index page for the trip to England as well, with a map of Devon and Cornwall.