I went to see the Effelsberg 100-m radio telescope Saturday morning. There isn't much to say about it, but I thought I'd toss up a few photos.
In the photo, it looks like a tiny dish pretty close, but probably less than half the distance to the trees next to it. It's ginormous. I noticed you can see it from a nearby village (wonder what the neighbors think of that view?).
Closer, but still not very close.
The back side of the dish and some of the structure.
We put on hardhats and went up to the platform where the motor that changes the altitude is (the bottom of the black arc on the picture above). You can see all the way down. The telescope sits on four of those red 'feet' (for comparison you can see someone standing not too far from it) and spins around on a track. When the telescope was moving, and the clouds were moving pretty fast, it was kind of disorienting.
The control room is that entire glass wall (with nice view of the telescope from there).
Effelsberg is also a LOFAR site. Not too impressive, is it?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Effelsberg
Monday, March 24, 2008
Kreuzberg Kirche
I've spent a lot of time wandering around my neighborhood, yet somehow I never went down one street a mere block from my apartment. I finally tried it a few weeks ago when I noticed (on Google Maps -- although I have a physical map, and I should have just looked at that) that there might be a running trail or something.
As it turns out, it's not long. It ends here, after a block, at Poppelsdorfer Friedhof (cemetery).
You can see that there's a path straight through the cemetery, which is surprisingly large with a lot of very tall trees.
It's very steeply uphill and although the cemetery is on either side of the path, the path isn't really inside the cemetery.
After 10 or maybe 15 minutes walking (it's far too steep to run), I emerged from a wooded area and was surprised to find myself right in front of this church:
I peeked inside.
There's a path around the church's grounds and this (what is it?):
Once I was done being surprised by the church, I realized that I was really high up (for Bonn) and definitely one of the highest points around (it slopes down pretty steeply on 3 sides and gradually on the fourth. By the way, on the way home, I took the wrong path down and ended up pretty far from home at the bottom and had to climb back up and down again). I hadn't been able to tell how high I was while I was stuck on the path. I think that in the future I'm going to spend some time sitting on that bench.
Behind and past the church, there are some running trails through a wooded area. In this direction, the view is very green.
In front of the church, there's a big empty field and a view towards the Rhein (but, of course, you can't see the water).
I think that building in the distance on the right must be the Post tower, the tallest building in the state (it's pretty close to the river, as I recall).
As it turns out, you can see Kreuzberg Kirche from work.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Pop Quiz
For no reason at all, I've had this song in my head all day and I thought it be fun to put down the pertinent lyrics and see who can guess from which TV show and episode the song is (Googling is cheating, obviously).
By the way, when I Googled it to double-check the lyrics, I found two distinct sets of lyrics. Unless there were actually two different versions of the song, I feel like one version is clearly more correct than the other (i.e., the lyrics make more logical sense one way versus the other) and all those music lyric websites must steal from each other and propagate bad lyrics. Anyway, just in case, I'll put down both sets of lyrics.
The right:
When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange
who you are into what you're gonna be.
Sha na na na na na na na na, sha na na na na!
The wrong:
When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange
move your heart to what you're gonna be.
Sha na na na na na na na na, sha na na na na!
There are no prizes, just the satisfaction of being right.
[03.24.08 -- No one? Bueller? Bueller? How sad.]
Monday, March 10, 2008
I No Longer Fear Hell
I had a doctor's appointment today at 11am (don't worry, I'm not sick).
I get there at 10:45am. The waiting room is full. That means there are 7 people in front of me. The waiting room is behind a glass (translucent from knee height to over my head, but transparent at the top and at the bottom) door and wall, some sort of weird fishbowl. It's a nice room; they have bottles of water (bubbly, of course) and coffee set out (with real glasses and cups -- they don't do styrofoam or paper cups in Germany). I sit by the wall and wait to see footsteps through the door, signaling the receptionist arriving to fetch someone else. My last couple of appointments have been at the beginning of the day, so I've usually been alone in the waiting room and haven't had to wait for long. I've forgotten that even though everyone in the waiting room studiously ignores each other, when someone comes back to the waiting room to fetch their coat to leave (people in Germany actually hang up and leave their coats in the waiting room), the person leaving always says 'auf wiedersehen' to the room and everyone says, 'auf wiedersehen' back. At first I'm surprised, then unprepared. After 45 minutes, I've become one of the group, robotically saying 'auf wiedersehen' in sync with the rest of the room.
I start to fear that I've been forgotten. But I haven't; it's much worse than that. I wonder what would happen if I started some sort of performance art piece. What would happen if I lay down on the floor or started to bang my head against the wall? At 1 hour and 25 minutes (70 minutes after my appointment time), someone comes to fetch me: she takes my blood pressure. At 1 hour and 50 minutes they usher me into an exam room. The receptionist doesn't speak English and she knows I don't know much German (at least, I think she knows), yet after I confirm that I don't understand what she's saying, she continues to talk very fast, gesturing to the changing area as she leaves. I sit. 10 more minutes. I've now been here for 2 hours. I grow paranoid. Was I supposed to undress? Will a doctor show up if I undress? Maybe I need to perform the doctor-summoning equivalent of a rain dance. Is this all some sort of terrible behavioral/rat-in-maze-like experiment?
The doctor arrives! And the appointment is done in 10 minutes, and I don't have to do this again for another 9 months. When I go back to the waiting room to fetch my coat, it's finally empty.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
New Label
By the way, I've added a new label, 'sightseeing,' which compiles all the touristy things I've done and photographed, just in case someone wants to do a little virtual world tour. Of course, now it'll be that much harder to get all the labels on a single post.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Lisbon
I went to Lisbon for the weekend with one of the other postdocs a few weeks back. The idea was a short escape from winter. Instead, it rained.
This is the Castle of São Jorge:
It's actually not much to look at: a few courtyards and the castle walls and towers.
But as the castle where you're most likely to kill yourself, the Castle of São Jorge -- of the many castles I've seen -- is now definitely my favorite. At other places, you'll see something cool and wonder, 'why can't I go over there?' Here, you want to walk the paths on top of the walls and climb the towers? No problem. Is it pouring rain and slippery? No problem. Is water running down the steps (nice and narrow and steep) as you're climbing? Sure! Are there only low or no railings/walls? Yup! Is it really windy? You bet. And are you holding an open umbrella? Well ... yeah, maybe I should put this down and just live with getting soaked.
Of course, the rain really started when we got to the castle, and right after we decided to leave, it stopped. Here's the view from the main square of the castle:
We arrived on the rainy Saturday and before and after visiting the castle wandered the city center:
We could actually see the castle from our hotel room. It's the tree in the distance on the right hand side of the photo (very Castle in the Sky-looking, isn't it?). On the last day, we tried to find the nearer tower seen on the left but didn't before we had to leave for the airport.
On Sunday, we went to Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, an art museum with a nice ancient art collection, then took the bus to Belém, a neighborhood west of the city center on the river (the Tagus). We took the bus and the metro to get around; it was all very easy and convenient.
The first thing we did in Belém was locate a pastry shop recommended by a Portugese postdoc. It wasn't hard to find: it's the place with the giant line of people in front of it.
There and every day we were in Lisbon, we ate these pastries (thanks to Sherry for letting me use this picture):
Down the street is the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The church:
The cloisters:
By the water, is Padrão dos Descobrimentos, where a few German tourists who were Jehovah's Witnesses tried to proselytize to Sherry in Mandarin.
And further down the water, the Torre de Belém:
So I'm a little low on text today. Hopefully the pictures and wiki links made up for it.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Free Sci-Fi/Fantasy E-Books
This may not be so interesting for those of you 1.) uninterested in science fiction or fantasy and/or 2.) living near a public library in the United States, but as part of some promotion (revamping their website or something or other), if you go and sign up at www.tor.com (they ask for very little, just a name, an email, zip code, and age), they'll send you a free e-book every week (for 12 weeks, I believe). It comes pdf and I've heard (on Slashdot, of course) no DRM. The first book is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, who is the author slated to finish off Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Can Someone Explain to Me What's Up with astro-ph?
I suppose the vast majority (4 out of the 5 of you) of people who read this blog are astrophysicists (the other person will just have to wait). So maybe one of you can explain to me what's the deal with astro-ph these days? Hm, that's just asking for a bunch of punchlines, isn't it? But I have a specific problem in mind.
The average astro-ph entry looks like this:
Title: Halo X-ray Something Cosmology
Authors: X. PhD ((1) Please Donate to Me U.)
Comments: 20 pages, 10 figures, submitted to some journal
Subjects: Astrophysics (astro-ph)
Abstract:
Last week, I noticed something new. Between "Comments" and "Subjects," some entries have a new field that often reads (this appears only in the listing and not the abstract page):License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
That URL states
This seems to be pretty typical stuff but what's the point? Isn't this the terms under which all astro-ph submissions are accepted (that is, isn't adding this field redundant)?
So it didn't seem so important and I tried to put it out of my mind. Today, though, I saw something truly mind-boggling. The very first entry (arXiv:0802.1210, although once again, you can only see this on the listing page not the abstract page) has this "Comments" and "License" field:Comments: 21 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ
Now wait a second. It's true that everything I know about licenses and copyrights and such comes from skimming Slashdot, but something's not making sense. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (which that URL redirects to) says that the author has the copyright to this work and dedicates it to the public domain where "the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived." I think this means that anyone can take any part of this paper and reuse for any reason without express permission of the author. That would be well within the authors' rights and, I think, acceptable to it being listed on astro-ph.
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/
But this paper is also submitted to ApJ, where presumably, they intend to publish the paper. And before they can publish, they have to sign the publication agreement (that link opens a pdf), which states "you grant and assign the entire copyright for this paper exclusively to the Society" and, later, "the Society, in turn, grants to you the non-exclusive right of republication, subject only to your giving appropriate credit to the Journal." Reading this, I think that if you are writing a book, some company (not self-publishing) has agreed to publish it, and you want to include a plot from this paper, you would need to have the express permission of ApJ. How is this not in disagreement with the Creative Commons license?
So this is probably the most obscure, geeky, and pedantic blog post I've ever written, but I'm hoping I'm not the absolute only person who finds this interesting/puzzling.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Wrapping Up January
Even though I don't have anything really bloggable to write about, I didn't want to end the month with paltry two posts ('oh, the shame!'). So here's the quick round up of the month:
1.) I estimated (probably while waiting in the airport) that I spent 25% of my time away from Bonn in 2007.
2.) I got a favorite bar in Bonn finally. Blow-Up has a cute little dance floor, lots of couches, and always interesting music (Motown and Funk one night, French covers of American rock standards another).
3.) I'm patiently waiting until 6pm to pick up my bike from the shop ('Ich habe ein Problem mit meinem Fahrrad.').
4.) January represents the fourth straight month of obsessively listening to the Mountain Goats (hell, I spent month one, obsessively listening to just 8 songs). I've mentioned them briefly in other posts (and Tim's blogged about them twice too), but let me say it one more time. If you've ever had any inclination to take my advice about anything, the advice to follow would be to spend some time listening to the Mountain Goats. And once you get your grubby little hands on some songs, don't just play them while you're working or doing the dishes, etc.: it's all about the lyrics. A roomful of monkeys on typewriters may produce Hamlet in an amount of time smaller than the age of the universe (I'm not clear on the probability of this), but I could never imagine to produce anything as beautiful, smart, and funny as John Darnielle manages to pack into a few lines in his many, many great songs. Is that enough of an endorsement? Sound off on your favorite lyrics in the comments.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Not Much Going On Here So ...
I haven't had a lot of blogging material lately -- all living in the code and obsessively listening to the Mountain Goats -- so I thought I'd better at least point you to something else to read. My recommendation is the Onion's AV Club blog, specifically The Box of Paperbacks Book Club (there's no label for that, sadly, I just go here and skim for it). In this feature, the writer 'purchased a large box containing over 75 vintage science fiction, crime, and adventure paperbacks. He is reading all of them.' Each entry reviews a different book.
Monday, January 07, 2008
December Was a Rousing Success ... Blogwise
Yes, for the first time in a long time I did 7 posts in a month. I'm finally back in Germany -- arriving this morning and I didn't sleep a wink on the overnight flight from Boston. By the way, sunrise here was at 8:32 AM and sunset will be at 4:43 PM. I clearly don't have much to say, so why am I blogging? Well, as long as the sun is up, I should be too. I'm at work, so I don't fall asleep, but I can't actually do work, since I'll certainly do more harm than good.
Monday, December 31, 2007
San Francisco
It's a good place to catch the view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
In Case You'd Like to See More of Me Online
Now I know what you all have been thinking: weekly blog posts are not nearly enough online interaction with me. In that case, here's the fairly exhaustive list of me online.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Amsterdam, Finally
After Sean and I had to abort our trip to Amsterdam, I finally made it there when my parents came to visit me. And a few days before 2008, I've finally managed to blog about it.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Goodbye Old Friend
Friday, December 21, 2007
Snow
Monday, December 17, 2007
Washington, D.C.
Sean and I went to D.C. for the weekend, temporarily escaping the snow in Boston. It was really nice to visit some old friends (Sarah, Tim and Laura Jean, Cathy and Francis). We also did a little sightseeing: the monuments, the Capitol, the National Archives, and the Air and Space Museum. All in all, it was pretty chill and I didn't bring a camera, so I don't have pictures to share either. By the way, the National Christmas Tree is terribly ugly (giant, plastic, light-up bows?!).
Thursday, December 06, 2007
In Which I Become an Aunt
Say hello to Julia Irene, who couldn't wait any longer and arrived last Friday, 3 weeks early and weighing in at 5 lbs 9 oz.
A real cutie, isn't she? I get to see her, live and in person, in 2 weeks.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Yale-Harvard Game
I'm hoping there will be an important blog update soon, but for now I'll have to counsel patience. By the way, Saturday before Thanksgiving, I went down to New Haven for the Yale-Harvard football game. Now when I say 'I went to the Game,' let's be clear, I didn't actually see any football; I spent 4-5 hours tailgating. I mostly hung out with people I've never met before -- although I ran into several good ol' Branfordians -- and now have a hilarious story involving vomiting (not me) that I can't in good conscience put on the internet. I also ran into Ted Kennedy at a Dunkin' Donuts just across the Connecticut border.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Cambridge and Cambridge
Apologies for the long, long delay between posts (3 weeks!), but I was probably entirely psychotic during those weeks and any post might have constituted grounds for institutionalizing me, so it was probably all for the best.
I've made it to Cambridge, MA. I'm staying with Sean, who lives down the street from the Harvard Stadium (unfortunately the Yale-Harvard game is at Yale -- although I still might go) and just across the river from Harvard Square. It's a little weird to be back in the U.S., on the East Coast, in a real college-y area (hello, 1999, it's nice to see you again).
Continuing on the Yale-Harvard axis, a month ago, I was at the other Cambridge, in England, visiting the Institute of Astronomy. If you're an astrophysicist, I highly recommend visiting the IoA. The Institute building/grounds are nice (here's a photo of the cows outside my office window) and the people are friendly and seem to socialize all day (morning and afternoon tea/coffee!).
I had some fabulous Indian food, had a look around Cambridge, and went to a party. Cambridge is a very cute place (but packed with tourists and drunken students). Here's the second oldest building in Cambridge (the Round Church, 1130): 
Of course, the biggest tourist attractions are the Colleges in Cambridge. I went to (I think) Trinity, St. John's and King's -- some of the oldest and, therefore, most visited by tourists. They all charged an admissions fee, which doesn't seem quite right to me (since I was accompanied by an University employee, it was free for me). At Cambridge, walking on the very well manicured lawns is reserved for senior members of the College (hence the signs, although I saw them ignored several times by tourists). 
Yale has a college system based on Cambridge and a lot of neo-Gothic architecture, so I wasn't surprised by the Colleges -- although real Gothic is a lot cooler (this is the King's College chapel): 
Despite the faux-oldness of Yale buildings, they have a logic which I had internalized as being more 'natural' or more 'authentic': Gothic buildings with gates and courtyards (you can walk on the grass at Yale) surrounded by a moat next to the sidewalk and the narrow streets. Yale is in the center of the city; the moat is at least partly functional, ensuring that fewer first-floor residents have their rooms broken into, and isn't everything in England old and close together with narrow streets? The one time I visited Princeton, I scoffed at their Gothic buildings surrounded by ginormous lawns. As it turns out, Princeton has it right (sigh). Some of the Colleges are huge, and many of the Colleges back onto the River Cam, their grounds (with ginormous, beautifully-manicured lawns) covering both banks of the river (this area is called The Backs). 
The river (a river?!) is crossed by some very cute bridges and full of tourists punting boats. 
After a few days in Cambridge, I caught a ride from a woman I met at the party up to Manchester for a few days. If Cambridge is (sigh) Princeton, then Manchester is Ohio State -- a huge campus and University. But just down the street from the campus was a the downtown area with a lot of clubs, bars, pubs, and restaurant. It looked like a cool place to be a student. I was too sick to do too much wandering, but I did manage to watch Control, the Joy Division biopic; it seemed appropriate to watch a movie about a Manchester band while in Manchester.
So, finally, I've managed to cover England, now one of these days I'll finally blog about Amsterdam. One last note, a while back I linked to this post by Tim, gushing about the music of the Mountain Goats, but it totally bears reiterating: they're totally awesome and I don't understand how I lived before hearing their music.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Yay, Germany!
After 10 days in the U.K., I've made it back to Germany. I've got at least a couple posts about the trip and other stuff to be blogged soon. Unfortunately, even though I had a lot of fun on the trip, England appears to be full of sick people and now I have a cold.
On Thursday evening, I was pretty much running on fumes when I arrived at the Manchester airport for the flight back to Bonn. And the airport was a real hassle with finding the right terminal, disorganized waiting lines to check-in (and in the U.K., the home of the queue!), very restrictive carry-on baggage rules, and not a lot of food options. And I was worried about catching one of the last buses from the Cologne airport to Bonn, but, I forgot, it's Germany (and not the U.K., nor the U.S.). The plane landed in Germany at 11:01pm. After a shuttle ride from the plane to the terminal, passport control, baggage claim, customs, the walk down to the end of the terminal, and a quick run when I saw the line of people getting on the bus, I was on a bus and out of the airport by 11:22pm. I was surfing the web in my apartment a little over a hour after landing. God bless Germany.
Anyway, stay tuned for a long-delayed post on Amsterdam, pictures from Cambridge, a story or two on Manchester, and maybe some musings on the mysteries of passport control (the woman at the London Stansted airport was seriously considering denying me entry). Also, I'm going to be in the U.S. from Nov. 10 to the new year. Make a case for why I should visit you while I'm Stateside in the comments.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Baseball Playoffs
In 2003, when the Cubs last made it to the playoffs, I lived in Chicago. In 2007, I live in Germany, and I have to wake up at 6am to catch the end of the game on a 4 inch window on my computer, using mlb.tv (which is actually kind of cool).
Still, not as cool as this: Saturday, October 4, 2003, I'm leaving my parents' house and the Cubs are losing the 4th game of the National League Divisional Series with the Atlanta Braves, when I get a call. Game 5 is Sunday night. In Atlanta. Tickets have been purchased and there's a spot for me. We leave at 5am, drive 13 hours to Atlanta, straight to the stadium. The Cubs win 5-1, Kerry Wood is the winning pitcher. Afterwards, fans mill around the Cubs dugout and cheer. When we're done, we get right back in the car and drive 13 hours back to Chicago.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
More Blog Neglect
I don't know how I convinced myself of this, but I really thought that once summer was over, I'd have a lot of time on my hands to blog. Instead, my parents came to visit (eventually, I'll put up pictures of Amsterdam), and now I'm going to the U.K. next week (severely cutting into my baseball playoffs watching). I'm not even sure my digital camera is functional. It'll all get blogged ... eventually.