Now the leading German online-newspaper, Spiegel Online, shows the results, too. Including my photo! While they mention my Name as the creator of the picture, they did not bother to ask me weather I would allow them to use it on their site. That’s very bad behavior, I think. I am used that teenagers violate my copyright and post my photos in guestbooks of social communities like Facebook or MySpace. But a serious news website should know it better, especially since Florian send them the email addresses of all winning participants so that they could have asked.
Sure, I am happy to see my picture on their site, but at least a link to my blog would have made sense. They, after all, profit from my work by entertaining their readers.
I am exhausted. For several days an ugly cold plagues me, working is impossible and my personal pleasures like editing photos are so even more. It is getting better by now, slowly.
In addition I spend quite some of thoughts on the earthquake in Chile. The country might seem far away, but the world is small and Chile feels like having one of the highest astronomer densities in the world. So inevitably I think of some friends in Chile, hoping they are all right. Of some I already got news and they are well, but others have not replied yet, including a Chilenian PHD student from Conception. That city still seems to be more or less cut off from the world in terms of communications and websites are inaccessible. Astronomers love Chile because the country offers excellent places for observations. Regions that are very high and dry are perfect places for telescopes: The thin atmosphere and no water vapour give good visibility conditions. The observatories, at least those of the European Southern Observatory ESO, remained undamaged, in part because they are far from the earthquake site. But astronomical observation plans will probably get disturbed severely, especially because of difficulties in travelling. Good that I am a theoretician, not an observer …
Today the ‘Street-Carnival’ has started again, mostly in the Rhineland. That’s why I repost the sign on the left. I don’t like what carnival makes out of most people. While it is funny and nice to see how people dress up, the collective, mindless and public alcohol orgy and the impacts on public life are what I strongly dislike. Soon you will have to avoid collisions with people who’s path of movement is great to illustrate the Brownian Motion of molecules, but who are too drunk to now where they are going. And these will be right next to small children who of course like carnival because of the sweets, the masquerades and the free time.
Hey Guys, well, I am back in Germany now. After some warm Days in Sydney, Australia (including some hours at the sun-filled beaches of Manly and Bondi ) I have returned, just to find Europe freezing under a carpet of snow. The return flight on the 22nd of December was good timing: Right after the first cold weekend with closed airports, but before increased security at airports. So everything went smoothly, although the 22nd was my ‘longest day’ so far: it had 34 hours instead of 24, because of the time-difference of 10 hours. We got up at 3 in the morning in Sydney and arrived after noon here in Bonn.
Well, then there was Christmas, which we more or less did not notice at all: jet-lag and coming from 30 degrees Celsius at a palm-lined beach is not the best preparation. And now there is Snow everywhere, and the temperatures remain freezing for the last and probably also the next week. This actually slows down my film-processing. I’ll explain why:
All in all I shot 34 rolls of black and white film in Australia (well, and in Singapore). In Sydney I finally ran out of film, I had packed 30 rolls, so I had to buy some. Quite expensive over there… Anyway, now they all have to be developed. I prefer to do this on my own, in the bathroom-lab. But I can only process two at a time. It would take me weeks to develop all of them, especially because of the time they take to dry when it is cold. So I decided do send them to a good lab for processing. The first 10 are on their way already. But I am afraid of sending the others right now. The frost can not be good for them. So I am forced to wait for warmer days.
Oh, before I forget it: Happy New Year to everybody. The last one was extremely busy, with me finishing my last exam, helping to organize the TDGBonn conference (and attending it), writing my thesis, giving a talk about it and becoming a PhD Student. I married my wonderful wife, who also finished her studies in fall, and we went to Australia. I would not have expected so much to happen in only one year. But it is a good feeling to look back at it. And it somehow fits that it was the International Year of Astronomy. For me, it also was a personal year of astronomy.
Of course there is more to do. Right now I finally write the paper about my work. This is my first priority right now. I gave a first draft to my professor yesterday, so I can spend some time on other tings over the weekend. And there are new projects planned. I am eager to tell you about them, but I better wait until everything is settled.
As I have already spread caos in my Blog in the past two travel posts, I can as well continue and show some impressions and details from Sydney. Afterwards my mobile-phone phase in photography will be over. Promise .
Here I am again, from Australia. I didn’t post earlier because of two reasons. First: I was overwhelmed by the palace here. The landscape around Canberra is magnificent. Especially the view from the Mount Stromlo Observatory. Due to the huge bushfire in 2003, the forest on the mountain was lost. This gives a wonderful view of the surrounding hills and of the city of Canberra. The second reason was work: I am not here as a tourist, but had to concentrate on the talk I was to give. (And squeezed in some sight-seeing, which I found more important than sitting around with my laptop in some spot where I could find free WiFi to blog, sorry. The apartment unfortunately didn’t have internet.)
Now, where shall I start? Well, I gave my talk last Friday, which was well received, with lot’s of interested questions and discussions. The discussions here have been fruitful, I had the chance to learn more about the ‘Stromlo Missing Satellites Survey’ and right now several new ideas for my future research are developing. And I gained experience in giving talks to people that don’t know me nor my work. Interestingly, there are several German-speaking scientists here, like my host who is from Switzerland originally and one of his post-docs is from Germany.
The city of Canberra, even though it is the Australian Capital, is a bit, well, sleepy. Shops close at 5 pm, the city has only a few buildings with more than one story and the streets are wide. The whole city stretches over a big area, over 800 square kilometres, while the population is only short of 350 000. Compare this to Singapore, where I have been before: It covers an area of only 700 square kilometres but has a population of about 5 million! That’s what I call a city.
One benefit of being on the opposite side of the globe, on the southern hemisphere, is the weather. We mainly have a bright blue sky, temperatures between 25 and 35 degrees and light from 6 am to 8 pm at least. Much better than the winter in Bonn, for which the weather forecast predicts freezing temperatures. Seeing Christmas decoration here, on the other hand, is a bit strange (but the Christmas tree balls are much more shiny in the direct sunlight ). And it does not feel like Christmas time. I don’t worry much about this, I usually feel annoyed by all the holiday preparations in Germany. But seeing a TV advert with the slogan “Barbeque better this Christmas” simply sounds ridiculous to me :-).
Well, enough writing for the moment. I’ve got some pictures for you:
The lanscape surrounding Canberra as seen from the Mount Stromlo.
For some signs, the heat of direct sunlight seems to be too intense …
Some of the Telescope domes on the Mount Stromlo. The right building is completly burned inside, the telescope was completely destroyed. But it is cheaper to leave the domes standing (after a new paint-job), than to remove them.
I think this is the ruin of the directors house on the Mount Stromlo. You can see the signs of the fire everywhere, even though it happened over six years ago.
A band playing christmas songs at the ‘Old Bus Depot Market’, a regular market in Canberra that is turned into the local christmasmarket in December.
The decoration for the Observatory’s Christmas party is shining in the sun.
I don’t use to write about issues of my personal health in the blog. But as there are so many panic-making reports about the swine influenza, but also about the vaccination against it, I make an exception today. I got my vaccine about an hour ago. The reason is that I will fly to Australia end of this month, and I prefer not to catch this flu in some plane or airport.
Back to the vaccine. My side-effects so far: I am still alive. A few minutes after the injection the arm hurt, first strongly. Then it started feeling numb, but I could still move it. Still, it is better not to get the needle into your ‘main’ arm. By now, both symptoms are much better.
Asked about the deaths associated with the vaccine the doctor just said: “We both do not want this.” Well, somehow she was right, but this was not a reassuring answer. Maybe the doctors should be informed about the current statistics. But actually they don’t even know if the local public health department will give them the serum for next week. And they already have lots of appointments, of course. Speaking of appointments: It was not too easy to get one. Some doctors said that they could out us on a waiting list. Somewhere after position 600.
Ok, in case some other side effects appear, I will tell you.
It is starting all over again. Drunken, obtrusive people in silly dresses are roaming the streets of cities in the Rhineland. The carnival season starts now, so I have to put on my “Anti-Carnival-Button” again. At least the street-carnival is still month away, and as long as you are not a local newspaper reporter there is no need to go to the many carnival sessions. So my thoughts are with these people at the short end of the food-chain of journalism: take care, don’t led drunken old men fondle you, and always remember the correct colors of all the carnival clubs, or you might end up as just another star in the monument of the unknown reporter …
The following teasers are from a film by my brother (yes, we are a creative family). He is working on a end-time movie, called ‘Endzeit’ in German. Even if you do not understand German, the teasers give you a good impression on what the finished film will look like, without revealing too much. All but the second one can be understood easyly without any language knowledge. In the second one, the text line is: “Oh, seem that I have missed something.” The Endzeit-Project-Homepage can be found at Endzeit.tv.
By the way:Heproduces the film all on his own, as a student. So it is an ultra-low-budget production (with estimated costs of 2000 Euros). None of the participants are paid, but all do a wonderful job, I think. The first teaser, for example, was shot at our parents house (no, it wasn’t the original door ). If you would like to support him, I guess he would not reject it.
Kimberly Daniels writes in a Christian Broadcasting Network’s Web site that “[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.” Furthermore she writes:
It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.
Well … ok. Could you just give me some of this delicious demonic candy, please? Or best: give me a year’s supply. I don’t like the non-cursed sweets.
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