Category Archives: alltäglicher Wahnsinn

Brandenburg parliament closes two universities, founds a new one, without real reason or vision

Protestschild Demokatie

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 […]

Attention, aggresive architecture

Eingang IKMZ mit Gerüst

The IKMZ entrance got a temporary roof already some time ago due to dropping glass panes, but now our Herzog & De Meuron jewel is completed by a real masterpiece of Lusatian scaffolding art:

High heels for better science

I have read about this, but hadn't watched it yet. I'd better left it at that – this video is really as bad as people say. 🙁 At least the role of the man is limited to passively ogling women…

The Kunst of Change

The magazine Forschung&Lehre (Research&Teaching) of the Deutscher Hochschulverband (German Association of University Professors and Lecturers) published a short interview with Prof. Kunst, who wasn't minister of research and science back then, in its colum „Zu Ende gedacht“ (Thought through to the end) on 8 August 2010. It contains these two gems: If I were minister […]

Buzzword Bingo

MWFK-Bingo (Vorschaubild)

Prolonged exposition to Mrs Kunst's (and others') drivel causes massive de-braining. Humour seems the only way to counteract the MWFK's phrase-making facility. Thus, and in preparation for next week's public debate, I have prepared a Buzzword Bingo card: Update 23.03.12: Now, I've set up a generator that produces always fresh bingo cards. For printing, there's […]

Honorary salary

Basiert auf Lightning-Icon von brsev (http://brsev.deviantart.com/), CC-by-nc

Now, Mr Wulff, the just-in-time retired Federal President, has been granted the honorary salary (“Ehrensold”, currently 199000€ ≈ $265000 plus office and a car with driver). How very fitting that this is decided by the Office of the Federal President, the head of which has been appointed by Wulff himself. (Sorry, the newspaper articles are […]

Corundum fibre materials

A company, the name of which I withhold because of the ongoing innovative product development, is currently testing their new product “corundum rapid abrasion paper” (c.r.a.p.) at our university. This paper has several special properties: The fabric can be produced to be equivalent to sand paper grit sizes of >120, but is considerably thinner. Thus, […]

In Parliament: Sigmar Gabriel about the minister of defence

In this whole gruesome affair about our beloved impostor, opposition leader Sigmar Gabriel made a interesting observation in his speech about the impending army reform (at 11'50" in this YouTube video; German of course): There was no call to order by the president [of the Bundestag], not even all too loud uproar or protest on […]

Stratigraphy stylesheet: now complete

In November 2008, I wrote my stratigraphy stylesheet, which contained colour codes for all units from the International Stratigraphic Chart (ISC) down to the period/system level. Later I added some Cenozoic and Mesozoic units of lower rank. When I was ill during the last weekend and therefore sometimes rather bored, I completed the colour codes. […]

Survey design

I've bought a “Bavaria Ticket Single” online. Afterwards, I was asked to take part in a little survey. Having time and being in a friendly mood, I agreed. But then, this rather weird questions pops up: Translation: Are you traveling with the Bavaria Ticket Single alone or with several people? alone group of two group […]

Paramount educational goals

Being just a ordinary person, I sadly don't look deep into the legal foundations of life. Thus, I've only recently found out from a blog post on Astrodicticum simplex that Article 131, paragraph 2 of the Bavarian Constitution contains these paramount educational goals: The paramount educational goals are reverence for God, respect for religious persuasion […]

The case of the Ark and the missing dinosaurs

…has now been solved: (By Bizarro; found at Pharyngula the other day.) I'm quite happy that I didn't yet have to discuss with students the creationst crap the cartoon makes fun of.

The Geologist and the Engineer, in the year 1928

Sometimes, leafing through old books yields little gems. The hydraulic processes of groundwater in nature cause great difficulties for calculations. To date, the geologist usually tends to rely on imagination [impression? understanding? concept? How the hell do you translate „Anschauung“?] only, and to disregard calculations completely. The mathematically trained engineer, on the other hand, often […]

Maps in the GDR – objects of state paranoia

When working on the local geology, I'm constantly reminded that in the former German Democratic Republic, topographic and geological maps were classified material. Most of the Lithofacies Map of the Quaternary 1:50000 (LKQ50) and the Hydrogeological Map 1:50000 (HK50) were ranked confidental („VD – Vertrauliche Dienstsache“, literally “confidential offical matter”), the rest was even secret […]