Just recently, the Landes­vermessung und Geobasis­information Branden­burg (LGB) published the Branden­burg parts of the historic survey by Schmettau. The maps were produced between 1767 and 1787 at a scale of 1:50000. As an example, this is Cottbus and surroundings (link takes you to the Brandenburg-Viewer):

Schmettausche Karte ©LGB

The maps are part of the normal Brandenburg-Viewer; activate them with the button “Menü”. Right-click opens a slider “Opacity” so you can compare to current topography:

Schmettausche Karte mit heutiger Topographie ©LGB

Today, as every year, the NPD and other Nazis will come to Cottbus to use the 1945 bombings to spread their vile propaganda.

The association "Cottbus bekennt Farbe” organised a counter-demonstration and various other activities. The information on their website is only in German, however. The demonstrations start at 15:30 at the railway station and the university, resp., and meet at 17:30 on the Schillerplatz north of the theater. (South of it, the Nazis will meet.)

Various information, in German:

Maps: demonstration routes Cottbus bekennt Farbe, by Cottbus Nazifrei.

Facebook: group “Cottbus bekennt Farbe”

Twitter: Information on @nazifrei_ticker, Hashtag #152CB #cbnf

Today, Brandenburg's state parliament has passed a law to close the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus and the University for Applied Sciences Lausitz and to found a new Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg on 1 July.

This happens after almost one year of so-called “discussions” which never addressed reasons, costs and benefits of the whole procedure.

A sad day for democracy and science in Brandenburg.

Wannenkopf

I'm in the Allgäu since Thursday evening, and the weather has improved a bit in the meantime: it's no longer warm and rainy, but only warm. Sadly, there's only little snow, but at least almost enough for a white cover.

Oberstdorf Mountains

This photo and the remarks on the weather are strangely similar to my christmas post from 2008…

For a little christmas mood (and kitsch), here's a little outdoor nativity scene. (The photo is from last year, however.)

Nativity scene

First Snow in Cottbus, 27.10.2012.

The contrast between autumn and winter was quite nice in Puschkin Park:

First Snow in Cottbus, 27.10.2012, Puschkin Park.

According to the local newspaper (Lausitzer Rundschau), a team of two girls and two boys is responsible for this: Mario, Ursula, Veronika and Rafael.

You'll find these key players on the weather map of today. Mario on Iceland and the ladies in Scandinavia and western Russia drive cold air from the polar region between them to the south, whereas Rafael moves warm and moist air from the Mediterranean Sea to the north. The warm air glides over the cold air, is forced to rise, cools down, moisture condensates and falls down. Into my garden.

At least the role of the man is limited to passively ogling women…

In the light of the plans of the ministry of science, research and culture to close the universities in the Lausitz and found a new one, and to counter the negative picture painted by the media, statements of BTU alumni have been collected on the Mittelbau¹ wiki. However, these statements are all in German, as far is I can see.

Also, Mittelbau employees explain why the joined BTU.

You'll find a bit more information in my German post, or ask me for a translation if you're interested.

1. Mittelbau are the non-professor scientists/researchers of an university.

It contains these two gems:

If I were minister of research and science…
I wouldn't cut down the budget!

And:

Sometimes, I wonder…
how you could prevent irrational decisions.

Something must have happened to her during the last 1½ years. Perhaps she was replaced by aliens.

Thanks to Cottbus kämpft for this.

xkcd 1040: Lakes and Oceans.

Interesting, that some ships sank in waters less deep than they were long…

The Mariana trench doesn't look very “trenchily” steep without vertical exaggeration (i.e. same scale for lengths and depths).

And I hadn't known that the Deepwater Horizon borehole was that deep – almost as deep as the Russian deep borehole on the Kola peninsula.

And something else about the oceans: NASA shows some impressive animations, called Perpetual Ocean, about the ocean currents that have been numerically modelled on the basis of satellite and in-situ measurements. On that page, there are some links with details on several regions, e.g. the Mediterranean or the Gulf Stream. Thanks to Christoph Larssen (ErklärFix).

NASA Perpetual Ocean

Same old story. Today, the minister promises that “discussions will start now” for at least the third time in the last six weeks. Oh, she slightly seems to see the possibility of the thought that talking about concepts might be a good idea. I admint that's a terrific improvement. However, she perfectly managed to obfuscate her schedule, so I still don't know if the Cabinet will pass their proposal for a closing+founding law before summer break or if she wnats to wait to do everything together at the end of the year when the Landeshochschulstrukturplanung¹ is finished.

And she finally hands over the report on the university to their presidents. Why not earlier?

BTU Audimax, some time before the start of the discussion.

1. I believe she found that word in Mark Twain's essay on German language.

Update 23.03.12: Now, I've set up a generator that produces always fresh bingo cards. For printing, there's a 2-on-1 version, and for paper-free players a interactive page.

Clicking on the image takes you to the old, static HTML version. For printing, I have also made a PDF (A4 size). The words and phrases are in German – translations welcome!

Of course, the next step would be a random generation of the card. I also have some more words in store. Done, see above.

During the public debate (hopefully with a lot of players), something similar like this may happen:

Have fun!

Since a few days, there's another personal blog by a BTU researcher about the current university politics and Mrs Kunst's (and the ministry's) structure plans: btuinsider.wordpress.com. However, is in German only.

Until now, it contains two critical articles (about too-fast implementation and about Mrs Kunst's math skills), but I hope he/she will write more!

Update: Newarticle on the Mittelverteilungsmodell (budget distribution scheme).