Wood's Apparatus (Ohne Worte)

(from "The beginnings of Mössbauer spectroscopy" at RSC.org)

Lancaster, PA (Party like it's 1899!)

On Saturday, we went to Lancaster, PA, the center of the Amish population (maybe in the U.S., but definitely on the East Coast), also known as Dutch County (even though they are originally of German origin).
Following a conservative religious lifestyle, they usually forfeit all modern amenities like cars, electricity, and telecommunications. However, they can adapt, and in particular they can party (like it's 1899)!

LEGO Heaven

I cannot complain too much.

Today, our mechanical engineering maven agreed with me that my LEGO-based approach seems feasible.
Later, I went searching for LEGO in our lab and found a whole room full of LEGO... up to the ceiling.
Now, I got a few boxes (only a selection of them is shown below), an iced tea, and found myself a quiet secluded spot with a great view over the campus greens... it feels like being a kid all over again :-)

Robofest 2009

Every year, the LCSR enjoys a Robofest - a picknick organized by one of its labs in round-robin fashion.
This Sunday, the Robofest 2009 took place in Rocky Point Park near Baltimore. As my Mom came by for a visit the day before, I took her along to meet my fellows here.



(As usual, hit the link http://picasaweb.google.com/philipp.j.s/RoboFest2009LightAndShadow# or click the above slideshow to embiggen the pics on Picasa).

Hobby, Work, and the Value of Colleagues

It is important to have your work be your hobby... and maybe your hobby be your work.
This is the case with my task here. I enjoy it.

And although programming is just a small part of it, it is very enjoyable, too. Even though I have to admit that I learned more about programming and learned more from my (ex-)colleagues while I was at UBT. Honestly, my programming skills (no matter how limited) have grown tremendously while working with some of my old labmates.

First and foremost Techno and Dabbelju, I really appreciate all the little and also the bigger things that I learned from you. They still help me every day in programming, debugging, and profiling.

(As I have said a long time ago, I brought my T_Matrix<T,homo> class with me, and I use it proudly ;-). Over the last week, I spent way too much time working with it, and I learned a lot about programming, C++, and my own old faults during that time. And while I whittled away at some old bugs and shortcomings, its performance just today increased from 2fps through 4fps and 6fps all the way to 23fps.
When this happened I called it a day.)

European Parliament Elections

I missed the elections for the European parliament... I realized too late that my voting notice probably is in the stack of my mail back at home in Germany.
Therefore, I want at least to post some very strong opinions on why people should GO VOTING, why they should GO, and why they should VOTE.
It's not too much to ask. (But the following is maybe a generalization. Still, it serves to make a point.)

"[...] In D, voter turnout is a bit lower than it was last time... still around 20%. Sigh. Ppl don't realize how good the EU is.

Maybe they are ok with the EU, but they donot care who goes there to work.
Yes, but even in that case, it would show that u care about the EU, even if u vote just almost anybody. It's about legitimacy. If only 20%, then whenever there are problems, ppl will say "I didn't vote for them". Sigh. Here I had a hard time arguing with my colleagues (even intelligent ones) why going to vote personally, with your own feet or car, on your own time, once every four years is not too much. Why electronic voting is a shame. Defending D's pen-and-paper voting system. Why do u need electronic machines to vote? Why is electronic voting bad?

This is what is wrong with America. Because there are companies that could build those machines, they can argue that if you DON'T use electronic machines, it is unfair for them... WTF??? Here everybody believes they have a RIGHT to make money - even if it hurts everybody else. And e-voting machines are just one very bad example: Why do they have ANY advantage over paper ballots? They only have disadvantages. The votes cannot be traced. They can be modified. They can get lost. The long history of errors, vote loss, and outright fraud in the U.S. elections speaks for itself.

Sure it could be done online, like online banking or filing a tax statement. So why not vote online... because GOING to vote on a SUNDAY when u have nothing else to do anyways, once every four years, is not too much to ask. This is the only way normal ppl participate in a democracy. Democracy is very simple these days. Politicians do everything for you. People don't get shot any more for democracy. So going to VOTE is really not too much. Of course it would not be difficult to do it electronically or online. But this only serves to make people even more detached from democracy. If u can do it from ur own couch, then why bother at all. Going to vote is the single most important thing the average citizen in a democracy will usually do for the nation, so making it more of a commodity will not make more people vote, but less, because one will lose respect of this sovereign act.

People have to participate, so they cannot say later that they didn't know anything, that they didn't vote for whatever happened.

D citizens have a damn obligation to vote."

Fun with Numbers! (The Washington University Way)

(With the fun in the fine print (click image to embiggen); from Washington University Engineering.)

Unit Bloat

Awesome. Every week in the U.S. brings about another weird unit.

"Southern Utah’s Lake Powell was once teeming with boaters, fishers and vacationers. But from 2000 to 2005 its water level dropped from 20 million to 8 million acre-feet, due to severe drought. [...]"

How the 2nd Battery was Lost and Found

The improbable story of the disappeared battery, with particular focus on its incomprehensible reappearance after it was already given up for good and considered lost forever.