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Eunoia
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Oh, and after the death of his old dog, Kosmo, he also has a new bulldog puppy, Clara, since September 2018 :-)
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Sunday, February 24, 2019
Pope's pedophile plans
The Pope has gathered together almost 200 top Catholics (of which only 12 are women)
to talk about the One True Church's®
problem with pedophile priests etc sexually abusing children.
NB The age of consent in the Vatican is 12.
This is the FIRST discussion the OTC had on the subject :-( He has a list of 27 things to do that he wants them to talk about (talk is cheap). The list makes it immediately apparent that the Vatican has so far no method in coping with these sexual abuses, other than trying to brush it all under the carpet. It's about time that the OTC got a grip on itself(sic! ;-) and attacked this problem area. His list includes :-
Other - more radical - solutions are not up for discussion. E.g. since the OTC's priests already swear celibacy (= swear never to use their genitals), why not introduce compulsory castration? Cutting off their testicles and penis upon entry to the priesthood would not only be a test of faith but might solve the testosterone level problem too. This solution has tradition; there were eunuch priests in ancient Egypt afaik. And more recently, American slave-owners sometimes would cut off their male slaves' genitals making them eunuchs. These were much prized, I've read. /sarcasm off/ Sadly, it is not just the One True Church®. Southern Baptists in the USA are guilty too. They also oppose reform, preferring to hush everything up. In the past 20 years, about 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct. They were pastors. Deacons. Ministers. They left behind more than 700 victims. The only problem with these Baptist preachers is they themselves weren't held under long enough! It's not just Christians either : do you know the age of Mohammed's bride Aisha? Some traditional hadith sources state that Aisha was married to Muhammad at the age of 6 or 7, other sources say she was 9. Either would be inacceptable nowadays. However our national media don't see a problem with sexual abuse either in Islam or Judaism in Germany, ignoring their compulsory circumcisions {happy brithday? :-( }. We shall see if the One True Church® do anything more than just thoughts and prayers, if they take any concrete steps to stop their child abuse. Until then, it is probably better to bring up your young children in another religion, or even - gasp - as Atheists :-) After all, if we're all God's children as the OTC claims, what's so special about Jesus? Comments (6)
Thursday, February 21, 2019
We prefer to pay cashHere in Germany we all mostly pay cash when we go shopping. Indeed 78% of retail transactions are by cash, 21% by card, and 1% Other (e.g. direct debit). When I first visited the USA - a half century or so ago - some retailers regarded me as not creditworthy because I'd pull out a wad of cash or travellers' cheques for the more expensive stuff. At the time I hadn't known to get myself a credit card to use there. Paying cash is more efficient, cheaper, faster and anonymous.Where do Germans pay cash? 70% of their transactions are in the grocery store, 8% in a drug store, 5% for clothing (incl. shoes), 3% in gardening & DIY stores, 3% in furniture stores, and the rest by direct debit (e.g. via Amazon). Focussing on the grocery stores, people who pay by cash take only 22 seconds per average transaction, people paying by card and a PIN code take 29 seconds and people paying by card and their signature take 39 seconds. So card payers hold up the queue by 7 to 17 seconds, and that's just the average. That's an additional wait overhead of 32 and 77% respectively. Older folks pay slower. 18-19 year olds take 27 seconds to pay, 30-59 year olds take 29 seconds and over 60s take 35 seconds. But as the bill goes up the transaction time slow down too, you double check 100€ transactions but not 10€ ones. Now let's look at what each transaction costs in payment overheads : Cash transactions cost the retailer 24 cents, Girocards 33c, direct debit 34c, card+PIN 97c and card+signature 104c/transaction. These extra 80c (a 430%+ cost addition) of costs are spread across all of us as the retailer seeks to maintain his profit margin. So that's kinda selfish of the card users. People who pay other than cash sacrifice their data too. Who buys what, when and how often : the transparent customer, subject of big data. This is particularly noticable with Amazon who do deep analyses and generate recommendations as to what you should buy next increasing their turnover. Amazon has also increased the amount of packaging trash we need to get removed, a hidden overhead. So for reasons of efficiency and cost-minimisation, we prefer to pay cash. Comments (6)
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Really? German cars are...... the MAIN danger to US national security?
Comments (2) 
Monday, February 18, 2019
Valentine's Day TripWhen Valentine's Day rolled around last week, SWMBO & I - together now for 40 years - decided to go for lunch to Trendelburg castle, where Rapunzel let her hair down.
The castle building itself in the centre is now an upmarket hotel which has an excellent restaurant, the tall tower in the left is where Rapunzel let her hair down (according to the Grimm brothers' fairy tale) and the white topped tower in the right was where we spent our wedding night, so it was a romantic day rehash for us :-) To attract more tourists, they now have a simulacram of Rapunzel's hair hanging from the main tower (4€ entrance fee to climb up inside rather than try to climb up her hair in the traditional manner). They also have a wooden cut-out with a painting of Rapunzel for that rare(?) selfie photo-op; so we let Clara try that out ;-) 
Inside, the hotel hall is quite olde-worlde impressive without too much kitsch. 
And even more impressively up-market is the name of the hotel manager ;-) 
Our meal was as excellent as expected : tomato soup, fried trout, 3-meats skewer, orange flambee´ and coffees all accompanied by an excellent white wine for about 100€ together :-) A very pleasant Valentine's Day outing. How was yours? OT : Blogroll changes:
Friday, February 15, 2019
Trump IS the national emergency :-([ Five US cartoons I collated ]Trump : a vindictive bully
And a perennial grifter.
Trumpery : the definition
Trump : the colluder
whose time is running out :-)
(go, Mueller, go get 'im!)
Thursday, February 14, 2019
No-Deal Brexit job effects in Germany :-(
It is looking increasingly likely that there will be a no-deal Brexit come the end of March, just 6 weeks away.
Obviously, this will be bad for Britain, but it will also be bad for Britain's trade partners in the EU.
Now economists have produced predictions on how such a deal may effect the German economy. Starting with economists' estimate that British imports will fall by 25% - more on that later - the Leibniz Institute have used the structure of the GB imports to see which industries in Germany would thus have less exports. The map on the left shows the regions where it is likely that employees will be fired because there is less to produce. Mainly it is the vehicle industry which will be affected. Factories of VW, BMW, Mercedes etc can be identified, but also Siemens and some IT companies. The map shows counties where the numbers will exceed 500 persons fired. Other counties will have less than 500, but the total may reach 100,000. I've asked myself where this magic number, 25% less imports, came from. It seems to have been plucked from thin air. Sounds like one economist took an (informed?) guess and others - having no better ideas themselves nor any solid research, just chimed in, agreeing :-( It would have been more scientific if many (alleged) experts with no knife to grind had been independently polled and then the median value [and inter-quartile range] published, but this was ostensibly not the case :-( The breakdown by county is intended to help the unemployment agencies in their planning and for re-training courses needed. We are still short of lorry- and delivery drivers, teachers and care-home personell but not everyone may want to do these jobs. However, DHL has hundreds of new jobs on offer - as customs agents :-) Germany has been the motor of the EU, so expect a slow-down of the EU economies. Thanks UK :-( Comments (1)
Monday, February 11, 2019
Tetration solutionYesterday's blogpost for Darshanraj Pattanaik set the tetration puzzle : Given xxxxxxx = 2, where the x exponent stack goes all the way off to infinity, now solve this for x ;-)Solution : Look at the exponent stack above the radix x at the bottom. It also goes all the way off to infinity. But we've been told this is equal to two. So we can replace xxxxxxx with x2. Thus x2=2 and there are two solutions for x, the positive and negative roots of two, x= 1,4142135623730950488016887242097... QED, simple wasn't it :-)
Comments (3) Sunday, February 10, 2019
A tetration puzzleToday's blogpost is written especially for Darshanraj Pattanaik, a student from India, who wrote me a nice fan-mail about my Maths pages. The rest of you blogreaders may enjoy it too or, if it is too highbrow, just skip it. The next blogposts will be back to normally abstruse ;-)Most of you may never have heard about tetration as it is no longer mentioned in school, so let me explain the term. Addition, a level 1 operation, is just repeated counting which is most obvious when using Roman numerals. The order of the operands doesn't matter, i.e. 3+5=8=5+3. Multiplication, a level 2 operation, is just repeated addition. 3*5 = 3+3+3+3+3 = 5+5+5. The order of the operands doesn't matter, i.e. 3*5=15=5*3. It is used e.g. to calculate 2D areas every day. Exponentiation, a level 3 operation, is just repeated multiplication. So 23 = 2*2*2 = 8. But the order of the operands does matter, i.e. 23 = 2*2*2 = 8, but 32=3*3 = 9. So 32-23=1 :-) Used for calculating 3D volumes every day. Next would be tetration, a level 4 operation, which is just repeated exponentiation. But it is no longer taught as there are few uses for it. Indeed I would be hard put to find an application. I suppose you could calculate the mass of a snowball rolling down a snowy hill of constant slope and picking up snow as it goes, but who need to do that on a daily basis? Fluid engineers could use it for solving Navier-Stokes equations I suppose, but they mostly just use calculus or do numeric integration. So tetration looks like this e.g. 5333, which is evaluated right to left.
Just for completeness sake, pentation (a level 5 operation) is the next hyperoperation after tetration but before hexation (a level 6 operation). It is defined as iterated (repeated) tetration, just as tetration is iterated exponentiation. It is a binary operation defined with two numbers a and b, where a is tetrated to itself b times. But back to tetration. And here is the tetration puzzle. Given an arbitrary but infinite equation, say xxxxxxx = 2, where the x exponent stack goes all the way up to infinity, now solve this for x ;-) You can either see the solution immediately, or never :-) So give it a try before I explain tomorrow how easy it is :-)
Comments (1)
Friday, February 8, 2019
Rising sea levels = new coastlines?Tuesday's blogpost also got a somewhat off-topic LONG diatribe from a Dutch blogreader who has unlurked anonymously about how "... the problem is not just pollution but also climate change. When the ice caps melt, I for one will have to retreat to higher ground (e.g. in Germany) and my house then will be worthless (and underwater)..." I'll spare you the diatribe, but the map he/she sent me (source not identified) is interesting :-
This map shows the flooded areas (in red) if the mean sea level were to rise by five meters. Not only would most of the Low Countries be flooded, but other places also. I see that my sister in Havant would be flooded out, Jimmy in Wick (Scotland), Barbara in the Hull area too, and perhaps Liz Hinds who lives in Swansea? (Swansea is a hilly area though, so not all areas there would be swamped). On the other side of the Atlantic, I assume that parts of the Eastern Seaboard (e.g. New York, Boston, Washington DC) would be affected and further south, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans etc would be submerged too. Hopefully also Mar-a-Lago??? ;-) Anyone got a link to more details for the USA? Comments (5)
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Slow Down?Germany is famous for not having a (national) speed limit on the autobahn. Which is not 100% true. In some of the states which have or had the Green party in their state government, limits (e.g. 120 or 130 km/h) were introduced. So only on about half of the autobahn can you go full blast. Give us our freedom back, you limp-wristed wimps!Now a government climate report, discussing how to reduce the CO2 and NOx emissions, proposes to introduce a national 130 km/h speed limit :-(
But in practice I average about 55 km/h in the car (e.g. short shopping trips) and 75-80 km/h on the twisty country roads on my motorbike. On the autobahn the car averages only 100-110 km/h and the bike about 130 km/h because the traffic is usually too dense and even the autobahn is narrow (only 2 or 3 lanes each way, I can hear you Americans laughing). 
Only 3% of the traffic goes above the recommended speed of 130 km/h, so any CO2 and NOx emission reductions would be minimal. The trucks which cause most of the NOx emissions are limited to 100 km/h anyway, so a 130 km/h limit wouldn't have any savings for them. Prior to 1910 there was a national speed limit of 15 km/h; this was then scrapped except for heavy vehicles over 5.5 tons (i.e. the road locomotives and steam-powered tractors that were standard back then). Nevertheless, some states after 1910 issued their own speed limits :-( But in 1934 the new government scrapped all the speed limits, at least up until 1939 when the national limits of 100 km/h outside towns and 60 km/h inside, were introduced. During the war, even these were lowered by 20 km/h (not that there was much private traffic anyway). After the war, in 1953, all speed limits were scrapped, at least until 1957 when an urban limit of 50 km/h was introduced, which we have until this day. In 1976, as a result of the oil shortage, a national speed limit of 100 km/h for roads outside towns was introduced (autobahns excepted) also in an effort to reduce the death toll. For the autobahn a speed of 130 km/h was recommended, but no top limit. In communist East Germany, with their pathetic Trabbi cardboard cars, the autobahn limit was 100, other roads 80 and urban areas 50. In order that the government not introduce new limits, the German car industry voluntarily capped their vehicles at 250 km/h, Porsche excepted. Bike manufacturers voluntarily limited their engines to 100 bhp; nowadays 200 bhp is usual for liter-bikes :-) The average new car sold in Germany in 2018 had 154.3 hp, an increase of 1.2% over 2017. So drivers are saying what they think of speed limits ;-) As you can tell, I'm an opponent of speed limits, although my present bike and car and my oldtimer car all run out of power at around 220-240 km/h. If the government wants to cap NOx emissions, let them have stricter limits on diesel engines' emissions and take a look at shipping and jet planes. Shipping? Yes, most of the air pollution in coastal and river cities such as Hamburg comes from the shipping, but that barely gets a mention. Let freedom reign! [YMphMV].
Comments (9) 
Friday, February 1, 2019
Vinyl LPs and/or MCs to MP3Over on her blog, Cop Car has been telling us about her decluttering, in particular how she disposes of her old vinyl LPs ("WichiDude and Dudette were asked, by email, to consider taking bunches of records home with them to allow WichiDude to sort them at his leisure").I on the other hand have taken the road less travelled with my 3-400 LPs. I saw an ad that a local discounter (Aldi) had a special deal for a dirt-cheap (€40) record player with a built in A/D converter which would convert your old vinyl into MP3 files and store them on an USB stick. 
The player is shown above. I shoved an USB stick I already had into the port on the front and was ready to go. But the box can do more. Next to the USB port is an SD card slot which I could have used for output instead. And around on the left side (not shown) is a MC player for music cassettes if one wanted to digitalise these too. Side (sic!) note : My cassettes have been in various cars 24 hours/day for decades and so have been through tens of thousands of thermal cycles; correspondingly there are almost no notes higher than 5 or 6 kHz left on them, so they are not worth digitalising! Alternatively, I could input a signal via the AUX port and digitalise this too. There are built-in loudspeakers (2*1.5W RMS) of mediocre quality and a headphone jack (better) so you can hear what is playing. Up to 99 tracks are separated automatically :-) However you will need to label them (ID3 tags) manually on your PC so that's a bunch of effort to look forward to :-( The usual 3 speeds (33/45/78) are provided for the belt-driven turntable. Conversion A/D can be at 128 or 192 kB/sec. So the conversions are going to keep me busy for rest of the winter, I expect. BTW, as long as the MP3 files are for my private use, there is no copyright hassle afaik in the EU. Turns out I even have a rather ancient vinyl LP ostensibly named after the Minotaur's labyrinth : it's called "A maze in Greece" ;-) Comments (2)
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Pope's pedophile plans We prefer to pay cash German cars are... Valentine's Day Trip Trump IS the emergency No-Deal Brexit effects Tetration solution A tetration puzzle Rising sea levels Slow Down? Vinyl LPs to MP3 50 years on the moon Amazon's Scout Watch this space Information Overload :-( Suffrage Centenary :-) Puncture :-( Eating in Church :-) Watt a great idea... A New Year Resolution Reading text books :-) The Bethlehem Myth Ideal Xmas present... Blogroll Ain Bulldog Blog All hat no cattle Badtux... Balloon Juice Cop Car Curmudgeonly... Earth-Bound Misfit Fail Blog Finding life hard? Greg Laden Hackwhackers Hullabaloo Infidel753 Mockpaperscissors Mostly Cajun MurrMurrs Observing Hermann Pergelator Plowingthroughlife Starts with a Bang Yellowdog Grannie Archive 2019: Jan Feb Archive 2018: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2017: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2016: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2015: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2014: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec This blog is getting really unmanagable, so I've taken the first 12 years' archives offline. My blog, my random decision. Tough shit; YOLO. Link Disclaimer ENGLISH : I am not responsible for the contents or form of any external page to which this website links. I specifically do not adopt their content, nor do I make it mine. DEUTSCH : Für alle Seiten, die auf dieser Website verlinkt sind, möchte ich betonen, dass ich keinerlei Einfluss auf deren Gestaltung und Inhalte habe. Deshalb distanziere ich mich ausdrücklich von allen Inhalten aller gelinkten Seiten und mache mir ihren Inhalt nicht zu eigen. This Blog's Status is 
Blog Dewey Decimal Classification : 153FWIW, 153 is a triangular number, meaning that you can arrange 153 items into an equilateral triangle (with 17 items on a side). It is also one of the six known truncated triangular numbers, because 1 and 15 are triangular numbers as well. It is a hexagonal number, meaning that you can distribute 153 points evenly at the corners and along the sides of a hexagon. It is the smallest 3-narcissistic number. This means it’s the sum of the cubes of its digits. It is the sum of the first five positive factorials. Yup, this is a 153-type blog. QED ;-) Books I've written
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