Denseman on the Rattis – Page 103 – An Old Harbour Where Strange Ships Still Dock <span class="strap-orn">❦</span> Formerly Known as the Widmann Blog

Insektmatematiker

2006/08/20 11:20

bug bibliophile
Originally uploaded by vojtisek.

Insekter er sååå søde, når de prøver at forstå matematik! 🙂

Lying in bed this morning, I was trying to analyse the similarities between two of my favourite books, Between the Rivers and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Between the Rivers (by Harry Turtledove) takes place in Mesopotamia (hence the name) in antiquity. The basic idea is that gods are as real as people believe them to be, and the main plot is about a young man’s fight to liberate himself and his people from the gods. It has many similarities with the same author’s Thessalonica which takes […]

EN · PHOTOGRAPHY · TRAVEL

Scorpions

2006/08/19 13:34

Bugs and Scorpions Originally uploaded by decadavide. I’ve always disliked scorpions (well, ever since Ötz found a scorpion crawling on his son’s duvet in his house in Italy very close to my parents’). That said, I’m in two minds whether I like them better roasted on a spit, like the seem to do in China. It has the advantage they’re dead, but on the other hand I’m not sure I’d really fancy putting one into my mouth. Oh well, I’m not planning any trips to China, so […]

DA · FOODDRINK

Slag

2006/08/12 12:45

En af de få danske retter, jeg ofte savner i min landflygtighed, er rullepølse. Men det skulle jo egentlig ikke være så svært at lave det selv – svin og krydderier findes jo også herovre. Mit eneste problem er at skaffe svineslag, da jeg ikke véd, hvad det hedder på engelsk – pork belly? Muligvis findes udskæringen slet ikke herovre, og i så fald skal jeg jo bruge en særdeles god beskrivelse, hvis det skal lykkes mig at forklare en slagter, hvad det er, jeg skal bruge. […]

DA · TRAVEL

Nye Ryanair-ruter

2006/08/09 19:01

Jyllands-Posten skriver i dag, at Ryanair snart åbner en rute mellem Billund og Baile Átha Cliath. Ikke umiddelbart brugbart for mig (men da fint for Miriam, der elsker Irland), men det er vel på den anden side ikke værre end at flyve via London. Men måske kommer der snart endnu bedre ruter. I hvert fald skriver Berlingske Tidende i dag: “Med udnævnelsen af en ny nordeuropæisk chef er Ryanair tæt på at sætte handling bag ordene om dansk ekspansion. »Vi vil være mere offensive i Danmark. Om […]

CULTURE · EN · HUMOUR · IT

La madonna che conduce la macchina

2006/08/07 20:37

There’s a church in Bibbiena in which one of the madonnas has had her baby Jesus stolen. Unfortunately, the way she’s holding her hands makes it look as if she’s driving a car, not holding a baby, so I renamed her mentally to la madonna che conduce la macchina. 🙂 It just a shame I had forgotten my camera that day – this posting would have looked so much better with an illustration… Interestingly, the next day we went to the museum in Arezzo to look at […]

BLOGGING · DA · IT · LINGUISTICS

Sebastians weblog: Hør en bog

2006/08/05 13:45

Sebastian har et indlæg på sin blog om lydbøger. Det mindede mig om Ric fra datalogi, som havde købt en maskine, udviklet til blinde, som kunne læse ASCII-filer på engelsk op med vilkårlig hastighed. Ric trænede så sig selv op til at forstå en meget høj hastighed, så han til sidst var i stand til at høre bøger hurtigere, end han kunne læse dem!

DA · PSYCHOLOGY · SCIENCE

Statistik

2006/08/20 09:30

Jeg har netop læst en artikel i Jyllands-Posten om, at Helmuth Nyborg fra Psykologi ved Aarhus Universitet er blevet fritstillet. Manden har jo kontroversielle holdninger, men hvad jeg fandt interessant, var, at JP har offentliggjort rapporten fra det sagkyndige udvalg (skrevet i LaTeX). Så vidt jeg kan se, er to af de tre sagkyndige statistikprofessorer, men Helmuth Nyborg er jo psykolog. Nu har jeg aldrig studeret psykologi, men hvis det minder om lingvistik, undrer det mig overhovedet ikke, at der er kludder i statistikken – det er […]

ALTHIST · EN · FEATURED

Christian the Great, King of the Incas

2006/08/19 21:23

I posted the following to the soc.history.what-if newsgroup back in 2003. It didn’t attract any attention, though, so I’m reposting it here now, since I think it’s one of my better ATLs. PoD ca. 1518. King Christian II of Kalmar decides that fighting the Swedish rebellions will only harden their resistance. Instead, he sees possibilities in the Americas, discovered only a few decades earlier. He thus sends out exploration teams headed by the most able Swedish noblemen. The remaining Swedish nobility are easily silenced. Around 1523, a […]

ALTHIST · EN · MEDIA

The Grapple

2006/08/13 22:24

I just finished reading Harry Turtledove’s Settling Accounts: The Grapple, taking place during World War II in an alternate world where the South won the American Civil war. As usual, the plot moves along at a snail’s pace, the dialogues are unimaginative, and the whole thing is totally predictable as soon as one realises that the Confederate States = Nazi Germany. So why did I buy it as soon as it came out, not even waiting for the paperback? I guess it’s like watching a sitcom. I […]

EN · SIGN

No

2006/08/09 20:16

No Originally uploaded by The Blen. I found this on Flickr’s interestingness pages. Please follow the link and read the comments – there are many great suggestions as to what it might mean (blondes only?).

EN · IT

Bibulus

2006/08/09 20:10

I realised today that I’ve hardly touched Bibulus for more than two years. Of course there are good (and not so good) reasons why I haven’t spent time on it, but it is a shame – it was quite close to becoming useful. I hope I’ll get a chance to resurrect it before too long…

EN · PHOTOGRAPHY

DSLR again

2006/08/08 21:52

Sony’s new A100 has now been released – I saw it for the first time in a shop window this morning. It’s a bit larger than I had imagined – it looks more like a tool than a toy, I’d say. The price on Sony’s website is £599 without a lens and £699 with. However, Ballicom House (which I found on Froogle) sells it for £433 without – quite a difference! I do think the site looks a tiny bit dodgy though… The second-best price is at […]

DIY · EN

Back to DIY

2006/08/05 14:23

Being back from holiday also means having to do DIY again during week-ends. As can be seen from the photo, I nearly finished laying the floor in the green room, I just need to add half a floorboard’s width. After that, I need to paint the skirting and add an extra mini-skirting. Not too bad – I should be able to get most of it done this week-end. Update (Saturday evening): I have now finished laying the floorboards, but I didn’t get time to do any painting […]

DIY · EN · GARDENING

New flowers

2006/08/05 13:49

My beautiful cornflowers and herbs died while I was on holiday (I hadn’t really anticipated a heat wave in Glasgow), and rather than starting from seeds again, I just went to B&Q and bought some “ready-made” flowers. They’re quite pretty, although a bit tame for my taste.

DA · FOODDRINK

Halvårsfødselsdag på tirsdag

2006/08/05 13:33

På tirsdag bliver jeg 34½ – halvvejs til 69! Det er vist de færreste mennesker, der overhovedet registrerer deres halvårsfødselsdag, men da Miriam og mig var børn, måtte vi få en islagkage på vores halvårsfødselsdag, hvis vi var i Italien på det tidspunkt. Ak, tænk hvis nogen kom forbi med en islagkage på tirsdag… 😉

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