Out of this world - Wonders of the Solar System

This weekend we visited the "Out of this world - Wonders of the Solar System" exhibition in the Gasometer Oberhausen. 

The Gasometer itself is a great location which is worth being visited by its own. It's the European largest Gas-holder and provides from it's top  a great view on the Ruhrgebiet area. The Gasometer itself is used as a exhibition place which host changing exhibitions. Currently - only until end of December - you can learn something about our Solar System. A lot of big format pictures of different aspects of the solar system alongside with 3D figures of planets give you anther view on the area we all are grown up ;-). 

Above are some impression of the 3D Objects which are distributed over the exhibition. First one being the sun and on the second one you can spot the Earth in the background. Unfortunately the last one - one the right - fails miserably to  depict the fascination which originates from the large moon which seems to cover the whole hall but actually is hanging rather low in the Gasometer.

Some more impression of the different pictures and technical tools are going below.

Make sure that you visit the exhibition - it's really fascinating and that not only for Geeks. Make sure that you bring warm cloth along though - it's not heated. 

Public Transport the only alternative?!

My work colleagues and Facebook friends got me to know as the guy who keeps complaining about public transport - even though I promised to the later to stop that. It's just a matter of fact that I have quite some time to do Facebook status updates and such while public transport is not going well - and honestly I have the strong opinion that this happens way to much. My non-German colleagues keep insisting that I should have no reason to complain about public transport in Germany at all as it is way worse in other countries. I don't think that this is a valid argument as on the one hand nothing gets better only because something is worse and also I don't really think that they have a statistical relevant amount of experience to judge on German public transport - especially in the local traffic. ICE trains are pretty good - I need to admit.But let's keep all this away for the moment.

Today I decided to go by car and that is really wasting valuable life time. A lot of small traffic jams all over the place - although everything went reasonable smooth. But still - this time was really wasted. For sure, I could have listen to my favorite music, audio book, you name it, but that actually does not really work if you have so much commuting time. At a certain point of time your favorite music just works at the time you want it not at the time you could enjoy it. Everything beyond listening to something is way out of my reach - being a male I can not really do anything in parallel to the main task being executed. What about the main task? Yep right: Driving a Car. The Prototype of Individualism in our modern civilization. You can decide where to go, which way you take and at which speed you are traveling - Total Bullshit! In first approximation - and I think that is quite valid in this case - it is just about maintaining the minimal distance to the car driving - or rather waiting - in front of you. Pretty stupid but kind of takes pretty much all of your attention.

Pretty much, but not all. So let have a look around. Wow - I couldn't remember a single car - at least of the private ones (which are 99%) - which was stuffed by more than on person. OK - can't be the case. So let's assume that only 10% of the cars are taking two persons and neglect the ones which are actually convey more than two persons. In an average car 4 persons would fit. So over all the efficiency factor is something like 30% (actually less) - insane.

So all together, I will stick to public  transport. Although it is pretty crowded in there I still think it would make perfectly sense to get more people on this - given that the infrastructure is improved. Would be a valid opportunity to make individual commuting more expensive and use the money to improve and extend public transport. As there are still areas and time frames where you simply can't rely on public transport like for me today. I have a business dinner tonight and can' go back home after 21:30 with public transport anymore. That's pretty crap - next time I will try to combine public transport and taxi though ...

Dortmund Zoo

That was a lovely day in the Zoo of Dortmund. Not that brand new like the one in Gelsenkirchen and also not equipped with an outstanding attraction like the dolphins in Duisburg, it is still a beautiful zoo. Fantastic view on the giraffes. They gave their audience from the outdoor enclosure before they went to the rather new indoor part.

It looks like a reasonable amount of enclosures hat been renovated lately - not all of it has been finished. Looks somehow like a software project - more than 6 month late and still not finished...

All together a great day. The picture impressions are containing more fences and tiles than the ones from more modern zoos but we also got more eye-contact with the animals. 

So everything has pros and cons. Looking forward to visit Burgers Zoo again ...

BTW - don't go for Glühwein or wafers from the cabin shop at the entrance - poor quality. For the one's with kids: They do have a limited number of pull carts available. Free of charge - coins available at the entrance.

A Darwinian theory of beauty

Denis Dutton provides an interesting theory of beauty in this TED talk. He applies the Darwinian Theory on the concept and discusses cultural and natural influences on the perception of Beauty.

We find beauty in Something made well.

Hand axes as the first art works which help the artist's tribe to survive sexual selection.
Does it explain everything and is self-consistent - Not necessary. But anyway interesting approach and definitely well presented.
Check it out!

Woihinkelche

Seems to be a typical German dish, but beware it is a quite local one - I didn't know about it the other day. Picking up a random German person in NRW to talk about is, will definitely lead to confusion. In my ears it sounds like somebody who is asking the way to somewhere.

In fact it is hessian dialect and it is one of the German Lego words. The first part "Woi" translates to "Wein" (wine) while the second one "Hinkelche" means "Hänchen" (henchmen).
We have been inspired by a recipe from "Culinaria - Deutsche Spezialitäten"- like always we didn't managed   - actually didn't want to -  follow the recipe one by one. The main ingredients are:

• Broiler
• Butter
• Shallot
• Garlic
• Grapes
• White mushrooms
• Brandy
• Rheingauer Riesling
• Cream
• chervil

You can find many recites in the internet - e.g. this one. Especially the flambé part makes fun and gives the special taste. Awesome ! 

Android Market - Downloads stalling and market crashes constantly on cancel

I >hate< this situation now for quite a while already. A couple of application downloads keep in a stalled mode and actually never finished. New initiated download went fine though. Even resetting the Phone (in this case an HTC Desire) didn't help out. Quite Frustrating.
Now after some internet search I found a working solution for this problem. Steps:

1. clear market cache: Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All > Market > Clear Cache
2. clear market data:  Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All > Market > Clear Data
3. force market close:  Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > All > Market > Force Stop

Just executing step 1 did not make the trick for me and obviously you don't need step 3 if your market application is not already running. This solved my issue - actually even without reseting the phone. I hope that I remember this one for next time ....
Source of this instruction is here.

St Martin's fire

Pretty wet ...

Location : Frochtwinkel 11, 45966 Gladbeck,

Oberhausen HBF

In the rare case that the real trains are not running you can have fun with the toy ones...

Devil has arrived

Great -  The speaker set has been delivered yesterday. All looks pretty good - only the cable which I ordered from a different supplier is not yet arrived, but the cabling task is anyway something which needs to be done at the weekend.

Only the Sub woofer is really huge - did I mention that it is really huge?! . Still looks good but not the greatest WAF. Let's see how the discussion goes with home government for this one ;-)

Looking forward to listen to the set - not just watching it.

In memories of the father of redpoint climbing

End of September 2010 Kurt Albert died while climbing a via feratta.
German TV BR broad-casted  a 30 minutes portrait of Kurt. I will be online for 7 days. Make sure that you check it out in time - Fascinating person who had a fabulous life style and sense of humor. For the non-native German speakers this one is a opportunity to practice German ;-)

"Vom Teufel geritten" - driven by the devil

My AV receiver in the living room is already quite some time bored - just one pair of stereo speaker attached to it - leaving 90% of the connection possibilities orphaned.
Now - just more or less finished the movement into the new Flat - Teufel dropped their prizes for some of 5.1 speaker sets. Perfect timing.
Looking forward  to get my set delivered soon-ish - together with 50 m of cable. That will be fun ...