randformblog on math, physics, art, and design |
In the image above it looks as if a boat ferries across to Isola di San Michele. However what you see there it is just Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore. Nevertheless in Venice you may still feel as if Tadzio from the famous film may lurk around the corner any next moment.
Below I make a little advertisement for Piazza San Marco and in particular St. Mark’s Basilica since there are yet not enough tourists there…;)
little artwork in between, video: “herfortragendes abtragen im untertagungsbau”
math comment: the involved tranformations are not using Moebius transformations like in In2, but are similar to those used in Leiden.
(old GDR advertisement of the electrical engineering industry)
There was a longer discussion on that randform post about oppression in the GDR. Within the discussion a randform reader called Ditta found my opinion that “part of all that huge mess of a wall through the streets of Berlin was plain economic warfare” absurd. This is still my opinion: there were surely people running away from East Germany for pure political reasons, but I dare say that a not to small part left for economical reasons. Moreover this reasoning doesnt justify the wall, I think it is clear that the wall was an inhuman mistake. The discussion just sheds a different light on the involved motivations.
I currently have not the time to discuss this in detail and since this is a different thread I hereby link to the comment which led to Ditta’s reaction and ask people who wish to discuss this issue to leave their comments here at this thread.
Blogwise – I am currently preparing a blog entry, which takes more time than I would have suspected…in particular I am not on vacation.
We managed our relocation. I overstrained my right hand a bit and had eye problems due to the dust, but finally everything got squeezed into the appartment so that we could hurry to Berlin in order to see relatives and solve some other problems.
The bad thing about germand appartments is that they usually have no built-in closets, so you have to move around all these big armoires (or live out of a suitcase).
We were lucky to find two rather antique closets, which you can carry in parts. One closet was in an attic and covered with cobwebs. The printed letters on its back indicate that it had been under a US Army Requisition Demand right after the war. Seems after it came back from the army the owner didnt like it too much anymore – given its abandonned situation in the attic.
It’s frosty in munich today.
a short personal note: We will leave the above beautiful garden sight by the end of the month. We were lucky to find a smaller appartment where the kids can still reach their school by bus. It is not easy to find an appartment for rent in munich without spending 2000-3000 Euros for a real estate agent. The appartment is at a rather big road. Unfortunately there is no traffic light in the vicinity and the traffic on that road is blowing too heavily for letting the kids cross that road by themselves. The architecture of the building and some buildings around it are similar to the one in the suburb of Neuaubing. We are on the forth floor so sometimes one can see the Alps.
I just came across these funny videos from the mission of Man System Integration Standards which were mostly shot at skylab. See e.g. this video about how to use paper.
The videos and documents display the problems of finding a well-adapted architecture for space travel. For that the Skylab investigations into anthropometry and biomechanics were apparently necessary.
Similar investigations were also undertaken in Australia. In particular the australian government was recently seeking 2000 volunteers for the ADF Aircrew and Crewstation Anthropometry Project which was organized by the Centre for Applied Anthropometry.
Recently I had the chance to take part at three workshops. One in London at Imperial College, then a workshop in Goettingen and then a workshop on the island of Langeoog. I don’t know wether I find the time to report about the workshops. At least on my last day in London I made a visit to icy horniman park and some pictures which you may find behind the link.
