Irren ist populär!

Die aktuelle Ausgabe der Weltwoche gefällt mir wieder besser als auch schon - zwei bemerkenswerte Artikel gibt's zu vermelden. Erstens jenen von Polit-Professor Borner, der ganz im Sinne Couchepins Blochers gefährliches Staatsverständnis sauber & fundiert demontiert. Nur leider wird's kaum einer verstehen ...

Einer, der's bestimmt verstehen wird, ist Peter Bodenmann, der Autor des zweiten bemerkenswerten Artikels bzw. der Rede, die er am jüngsten SP-Parteitag gehalten hat. Die Rede ist rhetorisch ganz und gar schweizerisch (will sagen: mässig), aber inhaltlich ist sie doch angenehm frech und provokativ, wiewohl ich selbstverständlich mit den weitaus meisten sachpolitischen Aussagen nicht übereinstimme. Dennoch braucht unsere Streitkultur Entwicklungshelfer wie ihn! Ein mit meinen Korrekturen versehenes Zitat:

"Eine Partei muss, wenn sie vorwärts kommen will, inhaltlich streiten können. Eine Partei, die nicht mehr streitet, kommt konzeptionell nicht voran. Sie verwischt laufend Gegensätze, statt diese offen auszutragen und dann zu entscheiden. Ich sähe gerne eine SP-SchweizFDP, die etwas anders politisiert: erstens linkerrechter, zweitens ökologischer, drittens europäischer transparenter, viertens mit mehr Wirtschaftskompetenz, fünftens konzeptioneller und sechstens beweglicher."

Beide Artikel sind nur Abonnenten zugänglich.

El Aurens

What a movie!

I just finished watching Lawrence Of Arabia. It's been a long time since I last saw it, and it does take a long time to watch (almost four hours), but it is well worth it. An ingenious tale of madness and grandeur, dedication, naïveté, clumsiness and vanity, discipline and friendship, and not least politics and cunning. This Lawrence must indeed have been an incredibly dazzling character, shying away from the brutality of war, yet admitting to enjoying killing - O'Toole seems to have literally impersonated him.

Alec Guiness as King Faisal is incredibly smooth: "You are merely a General, while I /dramatic pause/ must be a King." Upon which an exasperated officer leaves the room, almost running. Also Dryden, dry diplomat & chief architect behind the scenes:"And let's have no displays of indignation. You may not have known, but you certainly had suspicions. If we've told lies, you've told half lies, and a man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth, but a man who tells half lies has forgotten where he put it." Or to King Faisal: "Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Turnbridge Wells."

Fine music, too!

Seasonal gimmicks

/snob on/
Without a doubt, this is the most redundant gimmick ever! Everybody knows that you do not pop your bubbly, you open it carefully, letting the pressure escape slowly ...
/snob off/

Global hubs for epidemics

German researchers have developed a very interesting and potentially vital mathematical model (involving 95% of civil aviation connections and a set of stochastic differential equations - here we go again!) for the global proliferation of epidemics via civil aviation. Its counter-intuitive proposal for containment is not cutting the lines from the area of the outbreak, but rather shutting down the busiest hubs worldwide! Isolating just 2% of the biggest hubs is enough to drastically contain global infection. But then again, if you've ever spent a bit of time in one of the big hubs' lounges, then it becomes quite intuitive ... here's the article, and here's another reference to their work - both in German.

No more USD on Cuba?

Interesting news, that. It appears that the Cuban economy is in even more serious trouble than usually. I wonder how effective the pesoisation of the economy will be. What's the opinion of the Cuba experts (yes, you Thomas!) reading this?

Despite of all that, I wouldn't really mind being there right now. Amusing (NOT!) how the speaker for the weather forecast was giving his thesaurus a hard workout looking for synonyms of continuous rain over the coming days.

How to drive an elephant

Tickle behind left ear - go right. Tickle right - go left. Tickle both ears, go ahead. You need to read Joel's manual! I can just picture him driving this red Italian elephant ...

Greatest equations

Ha! Now there's a bit of intellectual snobbery if ever there was some! Which is your most fancied equation - take your pick! I only ever heard of seven of them ... must be my non-scientific upbringing, I suppose.

Laos travel

So wie's scheint, sind Sue & Marc wohlbehalten in Laos angekommen und bloggen auch schon fleissig über ihre Erlebnisse und neu errungenen Kochkünste - man darf also gespannt sein! Und die Fangemeinde ist ebenso fleissig am kommentieren ... wer spekuliert da wohl alles auf baldige Essenseinladungen? ;-)

Hier ist noch der Laos-Eintrag des CIA World Factbook. Seltsame Feststellung daselbst: ein Grossteil der Bevölkerung scheint keinen Zugang zu Trinkwasser zu haben - wie das? Und es scheint auch noch eine der wenigen verbleibenden, offiziell kommunistischen Volksrepubliken zu sein. Aber naja, das ist ja nicht gross anders als in Basel ...

Death of the fax machine

Whenever I am being asked what my fax number is, I reply that I don't invest in outdated technology. I do not have a fax machine, you see. If it's absolutely unavoidable, I give them the direct number of my voicemail system which also handles incoming faxes, but that's it. I am sure I have been regarded as quirky on that account, but at last I am being vindicated now, and by no less prestigious a voice than the Economist's Technology Quarterly! Here is the said article (subscription required).

Neurobiologen aller Parteien ...

Es ist immer wieder amüsant, wenn die NZZ mit spöttischem Unterton über neuere Entwicklungen herzieht. In casu über Das Manifest von elf führenden Hinrforschern über den Status Quo ihrer Wissenschaft, der in der jüngeren Vergangenheit bekanntlich zu wilden Spekulationen wie auch Forderungen nach Abschaffung philosophischer Fakultäten Anlass gegeben hat. Im angezeigten Artikel der NZZ wird aber v.a. auch auf die Inkonsistenz des Manifests hingewiesen. Nun, es gilt wohl auch hier audiatur et altera pars, weshalb ich mir dieses Manifest zu Gemüte führen werde.

Dümmling?

Hier gibt es den - mit allem gebührenden Respekt - wohl dümmsten Artikel aus den letzten paar Ausgaben der Weltwoche zu lesen, der in seiner weltfremden Borniertheit direkt der Schweizerzeit entnommen sein könnte. Und dafür soll man auch noch bezahlen! Besser nicht, daher gibt's den Artikel hier nochmal frei nachzulesen.

Gentlemen's Night Out

Tonight, two friends and I realised an age old project, which was to go to Stucki for a really extensive Dinner. Like last time, it was delicious and as we know, true mastership lies in continuity.

Here's a couple of pictures, made with the new rasor. The first one btw is one of Patrick Zimmermann's incredible dessert creations - almost too decorative to destroy (i.e. eat), but then it would be a sin to let it go to waste. What to do?!?

Happy Birthday!

Liebe Michele,
alles Gute zum Geburtstag!! ;-)

Stiller Has

Just returning from a concert of Stiller Has (Swiss German for Quiet Rabit) - good times were had! It was the first time that I've ever seen Stiller Has live on stage, and they're doing a great show, too. You have to imagine a rather potty combination of mainly American music styles (blues, country, a bit of rock, with intermittent polka), extremely bizarre texts in Swiss German (seriously, I don't want to know what they've been smoking ...) and a band which looks refreshingly unfit for the stage in all conceivable respects. And yet, they rock! Check out the sample in the sidebar!

You can be certain and be wrong!

Fearsome article (thanks JJ) in the NYT Magazine, confirming the diagnosis of dilettantism referred to in an earlier post.

It's true that confidence goes a long way in awing your enemy when you're standing face to face. But when you cannot find an enemy to stand face to face with, it doesn't help at all - it obfuscates your vision. That's where Bush is right now. Senator Kerry's statement quoted in the title cuts right to the heart of this.

I am confident that Americans realise before it is too late that they will loose with confidence if they vote Bush.

Old & Short!

Wow - a short & effective lesson in English from the Economist - read here. Top marks in style, delivery unknown ...

P.S. Happy Birthday, Anne!!!


P.P.S. The title does not have any relationship whatsoever with the 1st P.S.!!!

The Blacksmith & the Bookkeeper

Very nice 3 part article about the impact of technology on job descriptions, or even more generically of Schumpeterian creative destruction, shown specifically in the example of the programming trade which is being likened to that of the 19th century blacksmith. The author is trying to figure out why the bookkeeper has survived the blacksmith, and he identifies the higher and evolving share of hyper-human skills involved in bookkeeping as the main reason. Some of those skills are:
- creativity and imagination
- love and empathy
- subjectivity
- wanting, valuing, intending
- social skills
- hypothesizing

Very interesting also the readers' reactions, who obviously are mostly programmers, and who do not like one bit being likened to blacksmiths ... they don't really seem to get the concept of metaphors, do they.

Los nach Laos!

Mit grösstem Vergnügen weise ich auf den neuen travel blog von Peter, Sue & Marc (./. Peter) (etwaige Aehnlichkeiten sind zufällig) hin! Wir sind gespannt auf die sekündlich aktualisierten Berichte über meuchlings erschossene Basler, stichige Dengue-Fliegen und was da sonst noch kreucht & fleucht! Was sagt die Fliege? Ozapft is! Natürlich auf laotisch ...

High voltage in Berlin!

My sickly sister Rosi (get well soon!) just tells me about tonight's performance of Volt in Berlin. Funnily enough, the performance takes place in a club called ROSI'S, so it all makes sense ...

Volt in case you don't know (yet another gap in your education!) is (one of) my niece Lili's and her husband Jacko's bands, who live in Paris. If you're into seriously high voltage electro punk (Lili I know, you defy categorisation!), then you cannot miss it!

homo universalis

Solche Artikel über aussergewöhnliche Menschen lese ich immer wieder gerne - in diesem Fall über Francis Crick, Molekularbiologe, Mitentdecker der DNS, Nobelpreisträger, der sich in seinen späteren Jahren der Bewusstseinsforschung zugewandt hat. Unbescheiden scheint er die Schliessung der philosophischen Fachbereiche an den Universitäten gefordert zu haben, weil diese in den letzten 2300 Jahren kaum Fortschritte bei der Bewusstseinsergründung zustandegebracht hätten. Man könne sich mit dieser Art Philosophie auch nur im Zusammenhang mit der Ideengeschichte auseinandersetzen.

Vermutlich hat er, was die Bewusstseinsforschung angeht, sogar recht! Aber, mit Verlaub, Philosophie ist nicht nur Bewusstseinsforschung, sondern setzt sich z.B. auch mit ethischen Fragen auseinander, die wohl auf einer nochmals höheren Abstraktionsstufe stehen. Also würde ich sie nicht gleich abschaffen wollen.

Im Artikel wird auch Valentin Braitenberg erwähnt, von dem ich dieses hoch amüsante Buch habe. Sehr lesenswert!

Entrüstungsbewirtschaftung

Dieses Wort muss man sich zunächst mal auf der Zunge und zwischen den Trommelfellen zergehen lassen. Ent.rüstungs.be.wirt.schaftung. Aber auch in der leicht abgewandelten Form der Empörungsbewirtschaftung macht es noch durchaus was her, wie wir heute abend beim globalisierten Nachtessen (Pasta & Barolo) irgendwo zwischen Kalifornien, Nordindien und Laos festgestellt haben.

Anlass der Bemerkung war allerdings Beat Kappelers Behauptung im Doppelpunkt von gestern, dass es sich (im Zusammenhang mit Anstand) dabei um einen in der deutschen Politik durchaus üblichen Topos handle, mit dessen Hilfe der daselbst oftmals fehlende Anstand legitimiert werde (ich paraphrasiere).

Nun schätze ich Herrn Kappelers Aeusserungen normalerweise sehr und habe nicht zuletzt deshalb auch einen seiner Aufsätze auf meiner site publiziert; aber in dieser Angelegenheit scheint er doch einem sogenannten Stadtmythos aufzusitzen: Die Suche in Google nach besagtem Terminus ergibt bis jetzt noch keinen Treffer (was mich natürlich zu diesem Eintrag ermutigt hat)! Und auch die Empörungsbewirtschaftung wird offenbar nur 27 mal genannt, wobei die grosse Mehrheit der Nennungen aus Schweizer sites stammt. Also gar nichts bis wenig mit deutscher Politik, es scheint sich dabei primär um ein Schweizer Phänomen zu handeln. Eigentlich auch nicht verwunderlich ...

Also very Swiss - unfortunately!

Again, Switzerland has lost in economic competitiveness, according to the WEF's
Global Competitiveness Report. Norway has piled in the ranking ahead of us! So, the steady relative decline continues ...

Very Swiss

Let's share some very old imagery ...

Needless to say, that's my Dad & me on the right, a couple of years ago. Ok, a lot of years ago!

Wisdom in the age of Insecurity

Yesterday, I finished reading The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. I stumbled across this book in San Francisco some 53 years after it's been written there and it is going to be one of the more unusual books in my library. For one, the subject matter is clearly philosophical, but from a theologian's point of view, and that's definitely not my usual perspective. It's clearly very remarkable that a doctor of divinity and master of theology would hold views as - dare I say it - agnostic as this. But then again, he is a famous writer about Zen Buddhism, so that probably helps to explain.

His core points, if I may be as bold as to summarise, are the following: He dismisses religion from the scientific sphere of reality and he holds that happiness can only be achieved by living in the present with the "awareness that impermanence and insecurity are inescapable and inseperable from life" (I am quoting the cover text here). Well, nothing much new there so far, but I guess in 1951 that was rather novel. I do agree with the message, of course, but I do not really like the somewhat preachy style in which it is delivered.

Staying in Wicklow, Ireland?

Well, I have a great recommendation for you, then! It is Kilpatrick House, the family house of a friend from Edinburgh University, Richard Kingston. I've haunted the house before they started hosting as a "commercial" operation, but their hospitality is definitely commendable, and the rates are good value, too!

FIGUGEGL!

That's short for Fondue Isch Guet & Git E Gueti Luune which is Swiss German for Fondue is good and puts you in a good mood.

It's true! I just had the first Fondue of the season, and I am looking forward to many more. If you want to try for yourself, here's a halfway decent recipe, although I would use other cheese as well. In Scotland, I actually played around with Whisky (Laphroig) instead of Kirsch, and I tend to appreciate the result of this fusion cuisine, but around here the female section of the population doesn't like Whisky so much, especially the peaty kind ...

Curious sightseeing

I just rediscovered the September copy of Wired which I bought on the way back from Cali.

There's this article about a new way to use your SMS equipped mobile phone to do sightseeing. You just stick a yellow arrow sticker with a unique identifier next to any point of interest and a passer by sends that unique identifier via SMS to the number quoted and gets the text that's been left about said point of interest. Very cool! And even better: it seems to work worldwide.

Don't be surprised if you see yellow arrows popping up all around you all of a sudden...

Schweizer Denkfabriken?

Es gibt sie, und wir haben sie auch wirklich dringend nötig, um die Auseinandersetzung zu versachlichen. Zu schade, dass ich aus Termingründen nicht an die 1. Ideenmesse gehen kann, die in Zürich veranstaltet wird!

Bruder Hitler

Nachdem ich nun den Artikel von Rafael Seligmann sowie den Aufsatz Bruder Hitler (beide in der neusten Ausgabe von Cicero) entdeckt habe, den Thomas Mann schon 1938 in seinem ungemütlich ambivalenten, dennoch verbindlichen Stil geschrieben hat, erübrigt sich weiterer Kommentar zu Der Untergang.

Good To Be In D.C.

Just right before the second installment of The Debate, here's Jibjab's next little clip on the presidential election campaigns. Great stuff again, but it's definitely tough to live up to the expectations created by the first one. And am I the only one to sense a little less venom towards Bush than towards Kerry?

Gefährliches Staatsverständnis, Fortsetzung

Die Debatte hat also angefangen. Spannend! Vermutlich wird die Schweiz damit jedoch überfordert sein. Bundesrat Blocher jedenfalls antwortet mit einem Interview in der Weltwoche auf die Attacke Couchepins, nachdem Deissens Ordnungsruf ungehört verhallt ist.

Die Diskussion ist so alt & elementar wie die aristotelische Präferenz für die Mischverfassung, woraus Montesquieu dann die Notwendigkeit der Gewaltenteilung abgeleitet hat.

Die Replik Blochers kann auf zwei Punkte kondensiert werden: 1) "Das Volk und die Stände sind der Souverän, der die Verfassung erlässt und ändert." Die Gewalten Montesquieus mit ihrem geordneten Machtkreislauf haben in diesem geschlossenen Politikbild jedenfalls keinen Platz, was typisch ist für ein tendenziell totalitäres Staatsverständnis. 2) Er will institutionelle Aenderungen (z.B. Volkswahl der Mitglieder des Bundesrates), bestreitet dies aber explizit. Ein offensichtlich taktisches Manöver von überaus fragwürdiger Redlichkeit - aber von Wohlanständigkeit hält er ja bekanntlich nichts.

Dennoch ist es eine Tatsache, dass die gültige Verfassung auf einem gewaltenteiligen System aufgebaut ist. Wenn der SVP-Chefideologe als Mitglied der Landesregierung eine Aufhebung der gewaltenteiligen Verfassungsordnung verlangt (ohne das allerdings taktisch einzugestehen), so befinden wir uns tatsächlich in einer Staatskrise von einer Qualität, die es seit dem Sonderbundskrieg nicht mehr gegeben hat. Und keiner merkt es!

Daraus und aus der Erkenntnis, dass die Konkordanz tot ist, leite ich folgendes Reformprogramm ab: 1. Blocher muss aus dem Bundesrat entfernt werden, und 2. die verfassungstreuen Kräfte aus den bürgerlichen Parteien (inkl. SVP) müssen sich zu einer Regierungskoalition zusammenraufen.

Wenn ich von den bürgerlichen Parteien rede, meine ich damit nicht, dass die Linke ähnlich wie Blochers Parteigänger illoyal zur Verfassung steht. Allerdings ist die Schweiz in ihrem Kern ein bürgerliches Land, das von bürgerlichen Kräften geführt werden muss. Die Tatsache, dass Blochers Parteigänger nach der Zerstörung der (m.E. überlebten) Konkordanz nun auch an den Grundfesten der Verfassung rütteln, müsste eigentlich auch den (allzu) gemässigten Kräften im Land Anlass genug sein, endlich zu drastischen Mitteln zu greifen.

The Downfall

Autumn has been around for a couple of beautiful days now, and with it, obviously the cinema season.

Yesterday, I went to see The Downfall, a critically acclaimed movie about the final days of the Third Reich.

The film is hard to assess & qualify. It is not a work of art - the historic background forbids that - yet, the execution is brilliant. It is not a documentary - it only shows one side - yet, it sketches very precisely what happened in the Führerbunker in this final dozen days. And lastly, it is not a movie in the sense that it does not seem to aim at getting the audience strongly involved emotionally; but you are when you witness the fatal desperation of so many faithful followers.

It stands firm on a slippery slope, showing the banality of a small and shrinking, isolated group of people who once controlled the European mainland and now find themselves caught in a state of increasing dissolution of their madness when reality - or the penultimate loss thereof - sets in under the pounding fire of russian artillery. And yet we know the monstrosities their idealism created in the outside world.

Interestingly, the female characters play the stronger, more easily relatable to part, although they are just accessories to the great game and no less caught in the madness of their belief in the Nazi religion than their male leaders, who are limited to shouting and swaggering heroicly, with the exception maybe of Speer, two doctors and a young HJ come to reason. The narrator, incidentally, is Hitler's secretary Traudl Junge, who not long ago came forward with a very impressive interview about her time in the Bunker, only to die the day after the interview's German première. Excerpts from the interview form the brackets of the movie, and I very much recommend to see it also.

And finally, Hitler. Ganz shows us a believable character with an unwaivering, never doubting conviction of the righteousness of its perverted ideas. Yet what he doesn't show is the magnetism, the charisma the man must have had to yield such attraction over so many people for so long. In that respect, my expectations have not been fulfilled. With all other respects, they have been challenged. Go see it!

Technostalgia?

Newton Never Dies. It only gets new Hardware? Now there's a serious technology flashback! May I just give you a peek view into one of my drawers?

Usually I am not prone to technostalgia, quite on the contrary, as the numerous generations of outdated hardware (starting with C-64, then Atari STs, finally Macs of all descriptions) may bear witness which have found their way into my friends & family circle (at a considerable discount). Not so with the Newton: I am still a proud owner of two MessagePads! (Well, maybe it's got to do with that nobody wanted them at any discount, but anyway.) And reading about Einstein to revive Newton (wouldn't that make a nice image?), I think I might just go and buy a Linux PDA ...

Supporting blogger

I support blogger.com because blogger supports me! Here's their answer to a help request which may be relevant to you, too:

From: blogger@trakken.com
Subject: Re: Search in NavBar doesn't work
Date: 4. Oktober 2004 23:14:53 Uhr GMT+02:00
To: christian@dreyer.ch

Hi Christian,

This is caused by a bug on our end that removes one of the slashes ("/")
in your URL for the search box. We apologize for the inconvenience, and
we're working on getting this fixed.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support

Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: Christian Dreyer {U 3130976 B 6760293}
Subject: Search in NavBar doesn't work
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:09:27 -0700 (PDT)

The title says it all - and please don't say that my website may not be
indexed by Google, because it is.

I hope this issue will be resolved soon - the search feature would be
extremely helpful!

I think that's awesome, especially since the problem is particular to my setup with a third party. And it's a free service! I've had much worse support in paid services ... but GMT+2 - pray, where are they?! On South Georgia?!

Collateral

Just back from watching Collateral. Good stuff, definitely worth watching!

Tom Cruise is a jazz-loving, highly effective, yet cynical contract killer with a mandate to eliminate in one night five material witnesses to a court case beginning the following day. But he's in need of a ride, so he hires chance encounter, equally effective cab driver Max. Max however has fallen for the prosecutor general, who is target #5, so the inevitable takes its course...

Very good, "documentary" camera (you're right there, Orlando!), great soundtrack, good acting, even by Cruise. I love the linked critique's quip on his "complete abandonment of mimic introspection"! And the way he terminates target #3 for answering a Miles Davis question incorrectly is just vicious. Very nice & atmospheric also the hunt for #5 in the dark district attorney's law library - reminded me of the cloaked alien hunter in a movie the name of which escapes me just now.

The movie breathes an unusual, almost existentialist air, what with the intense mutual psychoanalysis happening in the cab and Cruise joking about having killed his father while Max cannot live up to his ailing mother's expectations (they actually pay her a visit as well!). And the ending is not entirely Hollywood, either, despite of its close enough setting ...

Gefährliches Staatsverständnis

Ein hervorragendes Interview mit Bundesrat Couchepin gilt es hier anzuzeigen!

Darin nimmt er in ungewohnter, durchaus unmagistraler Klarheit Stellung zum aus meiner Sicht brandgefährlichen Demokratie- und Staatsverständnis der SVP, die "das Volk" als den absoluten, totalen Souverän betrachtet und somit der verfassungsmässigen Gewaltenteilung - bisher erst implizit - die Berechtigung abspricht. Insofern erscheint die SVP nämlich nachgerade als totalitär, ein Attribut, das sie sonst gerne anderen zuschreibt.

Möglicherweise haben wir hier den archimedischen Punkt, von dem aus die SVP zu bewegen bzw. sogar zu knacken ist. Amüsant, wenn unser aller Ueli auf diesen Vorwurf faute de mieux mit "schlechter Stil" reagiert ...

Unbedingt lesen, weiterverbreiten, (mit SVP-Wählern) diskutieren!

Six centuries

I'll go to bed very soon, but not before posting about my day of music which spanned no less than 6 centuries today. It started off with the already mentioned performance of Elektro-Punk (I think) Tomi Z. at 1am in the morning: Very loud, silly, in your face, obnoxious, lewd, direct, messy. Very much alive.
It ended sedately, i.e. in line with my current state of exhaustion, with a concert of italian madrigals from the sixteenth century. Cipriano de Rore composed those madrigals mostly on classical texts by Francesco Petrarca, whose 700th anniversary is being celebrated with a special exhibition in Basle where he lived for a bit before the big earthquake (a recurring theme...) struck in 1356. Incidentally, Petrarca was rediscovered as a founding father of humanism not least by Basle book printers in the early 16th century, hence there are lots of fine incunabula on display in that exhibition.

But I digress. I wanted to tell you about the concert: It was very low, beautiful, intricate, dialectic, refined, precious. But very dead.

Anchor che col partire
io mi senta morire,
partir vorrei ogn'hor, ogni momento,
tant'è il piacer ch'io sento
della vita ch'acquisto nel ritorno.
E così mille volt'il giorno
Partir vorrei,
tanto son dolci gli ritorni miei.
Alfonso D'Avalos

Kontaminiert!

Frisch ab Platte hier die Bilder der Taufe. Viel Spass!

"Please switch off your mobile phone during the flight"

The days of this pointless restriction may soon be over, if this report in Wired is to be believed. About time, too!

Presidential Debate, 1st round

It seems that Kerry won the first round - the WSJ's online survey shows over 70% of nearly 15'000 participants thinking so, and the Bush Contract on Intrade (look for it in the window opening) has also lost over 2 points actually gained, albeit on a very wide spread. Consequently, Strangely though, the Kerry contract hasn't picked up by as much, so it remains to be seen whether this is indeed a trend reversal.

INTP

It seems to be fashionable in the blogosphere to share one's Myers-Briggs Personality Type, so here's my rough approximation, if you care: INTP with a penchant towards INTJ.

With the exception of the distinction between Judging and Perceiving, I think I am pretty clear cut. If you want to see what this is all about, or check for yourself, here is a lot more!

Sexistic education?

Wonderful! And there is even a brunette involved. ;-)

Since we're talking maths & gender, here's a nice complement.