My very own private library with reading space

the "table" in the middlle has been specially made for me and is a bit higher than normal.

Extreme sheperding

Extreme Sheep LED Art

Take part, turn the lights of for Earth Hour 2009 at 28/3 on 20:30

This evening it happens in germany too. Earth hour, we jointly turn of the lights for the hour between 20:30 and 21:30 on March the 28th 2009. What for, an who are we ? Its to give politicians a big sign saying, hey, we are conecerned about global warming, you better should be too. And we are people all over the world.. It started in Sidney in 2007 and today it is a global event. Watch the video an join us at 20:30 german time !



And don't tell me, you can do nothing:
Here is a list of what we already do:

Choose energy saving bulbs, even LEDs
Commute to work by bicycle
Turn down the heating 2 degrees (and yes, it is still warm enough)
Buy local food whenever possible
Support local farmers by buying their products
Reduce waste
Grow our own vegetables
Do not use standby whenever possible
Use notebooks rather than Desktop PCs
Replace only if its broken.
Buy Fair Trade
Print on both sides of paper
Do not print if not necessary
Do not fly when going on vacation
Use public transport whenever possible

See, there are things we do that you can do to ! So join us, make the first step this evening...

A new cool tool on the web. http://ping.fm lets you post status or messages to several services at once.

Just before the new Science Parliament start, a film about the first one

Being part of the first european science parliament to me was a great experience and i will try to take part in the upcoming discussions and topic finding on the webpage of the Science Parliament again. In the meantime you can have a look at the following video of the science parliament to learn what happened in Aachen last year:


Or simply have a look at www.science-parliament.eu

And see if you can find me in the video ;) I myself counted 5 appearances ;)

Are we still a country of poets and thinkers or has greed and stupidity taken over

Looking at the media, at the number of students in the "hard sciences" like physic or biology and on the sometimes incredible stupid readers letters in some newspapers (How dare this teacher try to teach his students about evolution ? I would not send my kids to him, cause we all know god is the creator.. Yeahr right, hush, hush back dear dark middleage person) I do not know if germany is still that intellectual a country it once was. You just have to turn on TV during the day for an experiment and it is astonishing how stupid some tv shows actually are. And I know of colleagues in my company who haven't read a book in years !

I sometimes get the impression that today the biggest luxury is to have a brain of your own, to care about more than money and profit and the career. To be interested in culture, in history, in the sciences.... We seem to fall back to pre humanist ages in some areas of our society.

Or maybe I am just another culture pessimist ???

Well then lets see when the first "I am an intellectual, get me out of here" show starts for me to watch... ;)

Unbelievable tragedy just happened in Winnenden. 16 dead ! My thoughts are with the families of those dead or wounded

It is unbelievable. 16 people killed in a shooting in a school in Winnenden. My thoughts are with the families of those kids wounded or killed.

I can barely express what feelings i have.

Had an intense talk with my kids to take away the fear they already feel to deal with the questions like: Can this happen at our school ? At least I could give them an important example of the value of friendship and caring.

Update: Well of course politics and the media accuse "1st person shooters" again of being responsible for the trategy. Another example how easy it is to find a scapegoat and not really think about the things going wrong in our society today. As long as we live in a society in which career and making money, mobility and focusing on the job is more important than society and family we will not stop such things from happening. We should refocus on non profit values like caring for each other, living in a community, taking time for friends and family rather than for working extra hours just cause some ignorant boss tells you you only can make a career when you do extra hours.

Even rich persons can act reasonable

Talking of real heros look at this guy Leonard Abess, Jr who gave 60 Millionen Dollars back to his employees after selling shares and earning big bucks. And he did not tell anyone. Great to see that there are still rich people who act responsible and for a common good.
Even Obama noted it and included his story in a speech before congress...

I bow for this man. I like it, when people act rather than worry.
Listen to the speech and the story here:


It is not about him being the biggest hero in the world but about rethinking what really matters which means, rethinking if being only focused on profit and not caring for the people around you has any value ?

Next stop on energy saving: LEDs.

I just started my next new technology and energy saving experiment. Switched several lights in our house from energy saving bulbs to leds. The first LEDs area available with enough brightness to replace standard energy saving bulbs we normally use in our house.
So here we go. My light on my computerdesk is now from leds. Which means instead of consuming about 7 Watt of energy they now consume only 2 watt !
Will follow the development but it already looks very promising. And besides, my "old" notebook is not on so often. Cause my new netbook only needs about 25 watt in opposite to about 60-70 watt my standard notebook needs ;)
Or even better, my smartphone uses only 6 watt and i can check email on it and surf the web.
So think about the appliance you use and try to use the thing most energy effficient !

A great quote on religion

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg

I will leave that uncommented ;)