Update to "Visited Countries"

create your own visited countries map

"Eppur Si Muove" (?)

... as found under this cool link.

Dream Compilation

Tonight, I had a dream which was extremely easy to interpret.

I was attending a conference on robotics, and had to give a talk on ultrasound bone mapping. Unfortunately, I was late, because I slept in. This wasn't too bad, though, since my bed was actually in the lecture hall, at the very end of the auditorium. However, when the last talk before mine was held, I was still lying in bed with my pajamas on. I was wondering, can I really go out, unshaved, uncombed, with my pajamas, and present the scientific findings? What can I do? And time was running out, everybody, all the scientists and doctors around, expected me to come out soon.



Since I have my new PDA, my beloved killer application - the Alarm World Clock - doesn't run any more. It's simply not included with the TH55, I cannot explain why. It's extremely stupid - this is one of the biggest drawbacks of this model. I cannot transfer the application from my old Clié to the new one, either; it's ROM based and thus cannot be easily beamed. And when I try, using another file manager, it arrives fine on the new machine, even starts, but any change to the alarm times completely locks up the TH55. How sad. In any way, this means I have only my radio to wake me up in the mornings, and this means today I slept an hour longer than expected.

CURAC 2005 - Berlin

This year's CURAC conference about computer- and robot-assisted surgery took place in Berlin, Germany, or actually in a suburb called Buch where the Max Delbrück Communications Center MDC.C is located.




I attended the conference even though I held no presentation there, since after two days' worth of conference, on the third day there was the annual German Research Foundation's special programme meeting where our RONAF project is funded.
So, I spent almost four days travelling, and some pictures can be seen below.

Oh, Dr. Featherplay was there, too:

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What follows now is scary, so be advised of possible long-term effects. In any way, I call this the Colourful Series:

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Of course, apart from me, there were other things in Berlin, too.
As you can see, the East of Germany is still very Eastern in places, while in others, money has poured in big.

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And finally, guess what waited there for me when I climbed up the stairs from a subway station into the light:

Cardboard

Yesterday, I (as seen in the picture below)...



... transported three large cardboard pieces home from my office, on the roof of Smørebrød (as seen in the picture below).



When I arrived home (as seen in the picture below)...



... I could find only two pieces. I have no idea where the third one went, in any way I couldn't see the 1.2x1.5sqm of cardboard. Maybe it flew off during the drive.

Election Day

Today is Election Day in Germany.
Somewhat earlier than expected (should have been next year), but social-democratic Chancellor Schröder found his reform efforts to be consistently thwarted by the conservative majority in the upper house of the German parliament or Federal Assembly, and thus gave up.
Or well, we'll see in ... about two or three hours whether it was really giving up, or just screwing things beyond belief.

Anyway, in paying my dues as a conscious citizen of an elective democracy, I volunteered as election helper. I had to show up at the local election office at around 07:30 (a.m., yes), meaning my usual wake-up time was severely changed. But what I want to say is...

... only today, when looking at all those voters, I found how much of an immigration country Germany actually is. It is a common habit that Germany doesn't admit to itself that we need immigrants, and that we need "good" or useful immigrants. Sounds weird? Look at what other typical countries like Canada, Australia, Switzerland, or Norway are doing: They select their would-be new citizens based on language capabilities, employment prospects, wealth, ...
While today, I met for the first time people who *cannot write*. I don't know if they were completely illiterate, but how could those guys *vote*?? And lots of Russian and other (Serbian, ex-Soviet, ...) immigrants without much knowledge of German... it's no wonder there's no foreign policy or immigration culture in Germany if this is all we get.

More updates maybe later.

*splat*

Look at this. I found this ignominy (I admit I had to look up the exact spelling of this term, too) today upon leaving my place's parking lot, at the windshield of the car next to Smørebrød.



Yes, it is a bite from a kind of salami sandwich. Behind the car's wiper. In direct comparison, and given a choice, I would always prefer Smørebrød's virility fetish:



And yes, "Smørebrød" is actually the only correct spelling (for the history of this name, recall that a) all my cars had names and b) Volvo is Swedish and c) compare with this explanation), as seen in this picture (once again, a big "thanks" to AC for this object):

CLIÉ is old, long live CLIÉ

The use of the following picture is limited, but nevertheless - it's the first tangible (more or less, my mom would object) result of my new used Sony CLIÉ PEG-TH55 PDA!

Quote

Nachricht von ***** (***** "******" ** *** **** [***** ****]) Zeitpunkt: 12.09.2005 22:51
sad song of a stray cow: a 300-kg dark cow was knocked down by a car on a highway in HK. afterward a group of cow came by the corpse and farewell their friend.

Without words

Cold War Politics between China and Poland

As I was reminded today... many many years ago, a colloquiual greeting on streets in Poland between friends was:

"May the Chinese invade Poland five times."

The reason would be that the Chinese would have to cross the Soviet Union ten times, then.

3000 Jahre

I stumbled over this quote in an unexpected place. Suddenly, it reminds me of my time at Gymnasium when you were reading literature every day.

„Wer nicht von dreitausend Jahren
Weiß sich Rechenschaft zu geben,
Bleibt im Dunkeln unerfahren,
Mag von Tag zu Tage leben.”