Mush do !
Travel: Took
Cornelia to the airport early this morning.
My adventurous wife is off to Alaska to see the
Iditarod Dogsled Race which
is mushed over 1000 miles, from Anchorage to
Nome,
which is really a long way from anywhere, like at the end of the world (i.e. just 60 miles across
the Bering Strait to Siberia! So I'm the dog & blog-sitter, at home for the next 3 weeks now.
I just hope she learnt the
18 Inuit (=Eskimo) words for snow correctly :)
Must Do list: So now I can work my way through my Must-Do list. First off this evening,
I updated
my CV (pdf file, in German) and scanned in a recent photo,
in case any prospective employers want a good computer consultant :)
There is also a list (in German and in English) of my AI books and
some of my technical & scientific papers online too.
posted by Stu Savory
on 28th Feb 2003 at 19:04 Central European Time
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Pictures and Puzzles
Reading: The
Magical Maze,
by
Ian Stewart,
Phoenix Press, 1997, ISBN 0-75380-514-6.
Ian is a phenomenon in the world of popular math. This book is a series of puzzles, constructed
as a journey through a giant maze. The author is the best Math-populariser in the UK, just as
Albrecht Beutelspacher is here in Germany.
Cinema: Went to see
Goodbye Lenin yestreen. Very funny but with some compassionate parts.
The nuances can only really be appreciated by someone from Germany, though.
Art: If you like space art, go take a look at the new (and highly colourful) acryl
paintings by Frank M. Lewecke, who lives
down in Bavaria. He has great samples as downloads which you may use (privately) as
screen backgrounds etc.
posted by Stu Savory on 26th Feb 2003 at 21:04 Central European Time
Monday, February 24, 2003
Ewe two?
Humour : I really like this cartoon. You too?
posted by Stu Savory on 24th Feb 2003 at 21:04 Central European Time
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Terrible Stuff
Music: Yesterday I watched a so-called music show on TV, something I seldom do.
Terribly bad stuff. Half the performers were of the 'Geilie'-Minogue "I just shout real
loud and show 'em my bum" school of entertainment, and the other half were woolen-hatted
omega-males who
could barely wave their hands up-and-down whilst talking semi-rhythmically. Their lifetime
ambition to become 'rappers' probably being based on their dyslexism ;) The real test of music
on TV must surely be that, if you turn the set to the wall,
the music still sounds good.
Crypto: Seems Mr. (007) Bond might have a worthy namesake at the University of Cambridge who
has published the decimalisation-table
attack on PIN-codes, letting a corrupt bank person
guess an ATM PIN in just 15 (rather than 5000) tries, despite the bank having a hardware
protection scheme supposed to protect against insider-attacks.
Reading: Here is a nice short Zen Bhuddist text,
There's no such place as Far Away, Richard Bach, Granada Press 1980, ISBN 0-586-05174-0.
This tiny little book has only 20 paragraphs but is movingly written. Good illustrations
by Ron Wegen. Reading time? certainly not more than five minutes :)
posted by Stu Savory on 23rd Feb 2003 at 12:09 Central European Time
Friday, February 21, 2003
Not forgotten
Space: Fortyone years ago yesterday America managed to lob
John Glenn into space on a suborbital flight. Just 10 months after
Juri Gagarin had successfully
made a full orbit on April 12 1961, and after NASA delays totalling 61 days, Glenn made his first space flight.
Later, he used his political clout to get a flight in the shuttle.
Crypto: A Swiss academic has managed to
hack the SSL protocoll, using
a man-in-the-middle attack.
Sock it to me, Baby: It never ceases to amaze me that Bloggers do have
varied interests! Surf on over to Nicole Luck's Blog
please. She will hand-knit socks for you & snailmail them to you.
Prices around 20 Euros, I believe.
posted by Stu Savory on 21st Feb 2003 at 09:59 Central European Time
Thorsday, February 20, 2003
Pentagon stupidities
Politics: Lewis Carroll wrote "What I tell you three times is true", so here are three
examples concerning the title theme. The Pentagon, trying to disguise its failure to catch Bin Laden,
is hotly pursuing the idea of using
tactical nuclear weapons,
whilst wailing about the possibility of any one else building a dirty bomb. Not only that, they
also want to build
a nuclear-powered drone.
If an anti-aircraft gunner shot it down, it would like be triggering a dirty bomb over
his own territory! So it is probably just as well that
hardliner Rumsfeld, full of old-testament style revenge,
wants to
withdraw his occupation troops from Germany, in order to damage their economy. After just these three examples, is it any wonder that
there is an increasing amount of anti-americanism in the
world today? BTW: That's not a typo in the dateline, it's meant to
be a military pun :)
Reading: Staying with things nuclear, I just re-read
QED : The strange theory of light and matter,
Richard P. Feynman, Princeton Science Library, ISBN 0-691-02417-0.
The abbreviation 'QED' stands for Quantum Electro-Dynamics. This is an eminantly readable
layman's guide to a difficult subject. Feynman's inimitable style makes it very easy reading :)
posted by Stu Savory on 20th Feb 2003 at 15:11 Central European Time
Sunday, February 16, 2003
Nuremburg revisited, & Korea
Politics: Back at the end of WWII, the four basic charges at Nuremberg
were: Conspiracy to commit a war of aggression, Waging a war of
aggression, War crimes and Crimes against Humanity.
Dubya is already guilty of the first one. The problem will be getting him to trial.
BTW: here are some of the signs displayed at the weekend's peace marches:
- You don't have to like Bush to love America.
- Daddy, can I start the war now?
- Who would Jesus bomb? (see Matthew 10:34)
- Bush-Powell-Rice-Rumsfeld: the asses of evil.
- Let Exxon send their own troops.
- America, get out of the Bushes.
BTW: There is still a Merkin who thinks that
ABC warfare is no problem :(
Art: If you like space art, go take a look at the new paintings by
Michael Boehme, who lives
down near Lake Constance.
Reading: Yesterday Emptybottle
complained 'How much do I hate that everytime someone mentions
a goddamn book, they have to link to Amazon'. Now I do this regularly,
so let me try to explain my reasons:
- Not only do you get my opinion, Amazon lists many reviews of the
book mentioned, so you get a spectrum of opinions.
- You get a feeling for the popularity of the
book (via the Amazon Ranking).
- You get links to authors writing for people of this kind of taste.
- I get a kickback if you order from them ;) I admit that this is
unlikely if I am writing about an English language book and my
link is to my subsidiary in Germany ;) But hell, Emptybottle, I don't
even know if they have one in Korea too :)
- You get an averaged opinion rating, not just my tip.
- I give you the ISBN number too, so you can just go to your
downtown (PyongYang?) bookstore. You don't have to buy at Amazon!
posted by Stu Savory on 16th Feb 2003 at 12:11 Central European Time
Friday, February 14, 2003
Exotic Ladies :)
Motorcycling: Recently my good friend Matthias Sander visited the
National Motorcycle Museum in Birmingham, UK. Here is his photo-report on
those
Exotic English Ladies :)
If you can't read German, just enjoy the photos, OK?
Valentine's Day: Cornelia & I have
been together now for
over 24 years, and it's just as great as on day one. Thankyou, Neli.
Politics: Today we'll do a Spelling-Bee children.
Remember, 'War' begins with Dubya. Of course,
we are told that Mr.Bush is a very christian man, following all the
teachings of Jesus. Like Matthew: 10: 34 ?
posted by Stu Savory on 14th Feb 2003 at 13:11 Central European Time
Thursday, February 13, 2003
Foxy Lady down :(
Flying: For over 25 years
I flew D-EHFS, a Piper 28-140, for several thousand hours.
She served us reliably and well for that quarter century.
On 25/6/1999, heavy-hearted, I sold her to a man who was to station her in southern Spain.
Yesterday, In the accident report log for Germany, I read that "our"
Foxy Lady had been
crashed on 07/08/2000. The 2 line summary read:
D-EHFS, a Piper PA-28-140 (s/n 28-26460), crashed after take-off from
Portimao, Algarve, Portugal, and burst into flames. 4 injured (w/o).
Goodbye Foxy Lady,
you served us well. I can only guess what might have happened. If there were 4 people on
board on a hot August day in southern Portugal, then she was probably overloaded.
Although I had a hook on her (to tow sailplanes), she had a speed-prop mounted when I sold her,
not the climb-prop. She had long-range tanks, which, if filled, reduced her to
being - at most - a 3-seater.
It was a good habit to check weight-and-balance before each flight, and, depending on the
length and condition of the runway/field, calculate the starting run too, taking density
altitude into consideration. Another pilot may not have done all that.
BTW: as a CFI (certified flying instructor) I always like to read about - and learn from -
the stupid things other pilots do.
The good news is that the registration number D-EHFS has now been 'recycled' and is
proudly borne by a new
Cessna Skyhawk at the FSE Flying
Club in Egelsbach. I wish them as
much pleasure with their incarnation of D-EHFS as we had with ours, all those long years.
Reading:
Notes from a small Island, Bill Bryson, Black Swan Press, 1995. ISBN 0-552-99600-9.
Before leaving his 20-year home in North Yorkshire to return to the U.S. (why?), Bill
Bryson did one last trip around Britain. This is his humorous valedictory tour.
Math: Several people wrote and asked for my (double-digit) divisibility rules in
English, not just in German as I gave them on 22nd of January.
I've moved them all to this link.
posted by Stu Savory on 13th Feb 2003 at 09:49 Central European Time
Saturday, February 8, 2003
Norwegian Wood
Blogsphere: Taught
Carl Stormer a
new word
yesterday,
and he went and blogged it, just the way a
Norwegian would ;)
Reading: 175th birthday of
Jules Verne today and - to my shame - can't find anything
of his in the house. Probably have
to Journey to the centre
of the Earth to find anything ;) But then, I'm probably too lazy.
posted by Stu Savory on 8th Feb 2003 at 12:48:08 Central European Time
Friday, February 7, 2003
R.I.P Alaska-Willie
Death: Yesterday was a hard day for our friends Doris and Klaus in
Talkeetna, Alaska.
Their
bulldog 'Willie' died suddenly aged 8. Our heartfelt sympathies go to them. It is always
a heart-wrenching shock when that happens; I remember how hard it hit when our
bitches, Sarah - and years later -
Alma, died. The only way to write
painful lines like these, I find, is to type very quickly with my eyes closed.
Reading: Yes, Virginia, there are people who read several books a week :) Last night
I just read It's been
a good life; the autobiography of Isaac Asimov. ISBN 1-57392-968-9. Great.
Snow: Lotsa snow again, here in Germany :( Shovelling snow from the pavement (=sidewalk) into the
village road at 7 am. Around noon, the local authority sends a snowplough down the road,
which shoves a 3 feet high wall of the stuff back onto the pavement :( Since they only went
down the road once, it is now reduced to single lane traffic between snow walls :( I just
love them for that.
Alaska has rain since a week now, no snow, and that with the Iditarod
trans-Alaska dogsled races coming up in just 3 weeks :( Looks like we are getting their snow! If I could drill
a hole through the Earth to our antipodes, I'd probably see a
weather butterfly there!
posted by Stu Savory on 7th Feb 2003 at 14:39:01 Central European Time
Tuesday, February 4, 2003
A specter abroad
Math: Did you know that you have
mathemagic fingers?
They can multiply by nine all by themselves! How? Hold up both hands in front of your
face (unless you are English and your name is
Godfrey Hill ).
Choose any digit
N to be multiplied by nine. I choose N=seven for this example.
Count off on your fingers, left to right, and hold down the
Nth finger. Here, the 7th.
This folded finger now acts as a separator, separating the tens from the units. Look at your hands in this example.
Six fingers are to the left of the folded finger, so you have six tens. Three are to the right, so you have three units.
So 7*9 = 63, OK? And it works for all single digit numbers!
I bet you didn't know that and neither did your math teacher show that to you!
Remember folks, you read it in my blog first ;)
Music: Has the wall of sound come crashing down like Jericho's (cf. Joshua 6)? I just read that
Phil Specter is being questioned in a murder case!
Reading: "The book
your church doesn't want you to read"; an anthology edited
by Tim Leedom, ISBN 0-939040-15-8. Tracks the view that the religious beliefs held by many in
the USA (and elsewhere) are totally unfounded. The Book takes a long hard look at beliefs,
evidence, stories, churches and acts of omission and commission. Sadly, I expect that
christian fundamentalist won't read it, for fear of being confused by facts.
What's next on the reading list? Malleus mallificarum ;)
posted by Stu Savory on 4th Feb 2003 at 21:59:01 Central European Time
Sunday, February 2, 2003
Sad Times
Bad News: Columbia disintegrated on reentry yesterday. Spaceflight
is a risky business.
On another tack: some stupid Danish teacher replaced the children's 'cops & robbers' game by one of
'Nazis vs. Jews' , complete with
flags, 'Arbeit macht frei' signs etc. When will they ever learn?
Reading: Staying with the above theme, just re-reading the dangerously seductive
The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad (himself a Jew).
posted by Stu Savory on 2nd Feb 2003 at 14:41:00 Central European Time
Saturday, February 1, 2003
Bill - Gaits ;)
Walking: The BBC News claims today that people can be identified by the
way they walk.
So, presumably,
John Cleese from the Ministry of Silly Walks would introduce a new
law to Parliament, known as the Gaits Bill ;) And I had thought that the Gaits Bill was what
you had to pay to Mickeysoft to license their SW.
Chess: Gary Kasparow loses
a match to the computer Deep Blue Junior. They were playing in a room with no windows ;)
Math: Found another website for Math
Education. It's almost as good as
the Cut-the-Knot website. Try both, then you'll
be better at arithmetic than 40 (That's an old Roman joke).
posted by Stu Savory on 1st Feb 2003 at 15:50:00 Central European Time
