Respect, Japanese People - stay strong!

Hello folks,

well, these days I am mostly thinking of Japan and the horrible situation in the regions that have been affected by the tsunami and the nuclear power plant. Most people here just focus on the last fact and don't realize that Japan was hit by and earthquake before.

Well, to be honest, here in Germany live goes on and I also care about football. So I thought about a way, how to combine that. I found one. Some time ago I saw a video from fans of Sendai, a Japan city, that is destroyed now. They had one of the best football supporters of the world (really). Additionally they have the same colors as my team and their melody (do you know the song? do you know my team?) was adopted by my team too (and theri supporters).

To show respect and give hope I proudly present you this video, best wishes to the Japanese people!

Unlike U - Trainwriting in Berlin

Hello followers,

are you bored of all the mainstream movies, that have always the same story and lame actors? Then I got a tip for you. Why not watch "unlike u" a german documentation about kids in the capital berlin that write trains.

Sounds stupid? Well, maybe it is, but why not try it? There are some funny stories, not about trainwriting, but also about life in general. At least the movie is "self produced", so don't expect special effects or stuff, but it has a good atmosphere and entertainted me well. Check it out!

Seven of ten famous baxxman stars!

Blue Planet

Hello followers,

I am back. Had a terrible weekend, not just the earthquake in Japan, also my football team lost and I had no more beer Saturday night. Anyway, things have to go on and so here I  go and present you a nice little tool which i found at the Mac App Store and I think its amazing, you should really check it out:

My new Mac App Blue Planet is now available on the Mac App Store for just $0.99. Blue Planet is a small utility that replaces your desktop picture with a beautiful dynamic map of the Earth. As the day progresses and the sun illuminates different portions of the Earth, the map changes in real-time so you always see where it is day and where night.

You can choose from four gorgeous day images of the Earth, and the night view is even more beautiful in my opinion. The map can be centered on your current location or set to follow the sun. Visit the Blue Planet website for more screenshots and a comprehensive list of features.

If you decide to buy Blue Planet, I’d be very interested in your feedback.

How does it work?

Internally, the map consists of three CALayer objects. The daylight image is the bottommost layer. Above it lies the image of the Earth at night. The area that is currently illuminated by the sun is stored in a CGPathRef. I then create a CAShapeLayer with this path and use the shape layer to mask the night image layer, thereby revealing the day image layer underneath. A Core Image blur filter provides the soft transition from between day and night.
I arrange two of these layer stacks side by side so that I can move from any point on the equator to anywhere else with a smooth animation.
The path that represents the sun-illuminated area of the Earth is recalculated roughly every minute or so. This means that the CPU utilization of Blue Planet is effectively zero.

The website of the developer is here: http://blueplanetapp.com/

So go and check it out, it's really cool to see that you are all sleeping while here is sunny daylight!

Earthquake in Japan

Hey guys,

you mabye heard about it. A heavy earthquake hit Japan and a tsunami rolls all over the world. Normally I wanted to post something funny today for the weekend, but when I see the pictures from Japan I am not in the mood for fun anymore.

So I use this post today to send all my best whishes to all people who are affected by this disaster! Hope you are not injured and the nuclear plants will not explode.

Yours,
baxxman

My Party Recipe for the weekend

Hey Party People,

its already thursday and do you all know what that means? Yes, its time to plan the weekend, refill your alcohol supplies and get ready to party hard. I thought after a few serious posts, its time to have some fun again. So I will tell you today a recipe of an easy and cheap "cocktail" that sounds disgusting but I know you will like that drink. Please be aware, the following recipe contains alcohol, so it is only for persons who are allowed to drink alcohol!

So, what do we need? We need:
- a bottle of Vodka (I prefer a cheap brand, like "Smirnoff")
- a liter of normal milk
- about five packages of vanilla sugar
- a big empty water bottle or can

Take the milk and fill it in the empty bottle, add the vodka and the vanilla sugar. Close the bottle and shake it. But it to the freezer for half an hour - an hour, however you like it and enjoy. Yes, it is that simple and at first it sound a bit disgusting, but you will realize that it just tastes like an milk shake. But be careful, you won't taste the alcohol. I think it is the cheap and easy version of a "White Russian" and it is perfect for festivals and stuff like that, when you are not able to take 20 liter of beer with you.

Funny fact: In Germany that drink is known as "Mäusepisse" what could be translated as mice urine. Do you have a name for it in your country? Have you tried it and liked it?

Watching cycling - Paris-Nice

Hey guys,

I am still not working on my BA Thesis at the moment as I have to wait for an important book. But instead I am reading through all the fantastic blogs on blogger.com and check the latest news.

Additionally I watch TV, because as a cyclist I am very interested in the Race "Paris - Nice" which is one of the first great European races in the year. It takes place now in France and I watch it on Eurosport. Like the name already says, they cycle around 1000 km, starting in the cold Paris and drive through nearly whole France to the warm Mediterranean where the beautiful village Nice lies in eight days. Because of this the race is called "Race to the Spring". Its really interesting how the landscape now looks, very grey and brown, and what it is like in July when the "Tour de France" takes place.

So I am happy of being entertainted and hope for some warmer days outside, so that I can start my own training this year. And when I hopefully finished my BA Thesis, its time for the great races of the year, like "Giro d'Italia", "The Tour de France", "The Vuelta" in Spain and also the "Tour of California" which was much fun to watch last year, because they had a live internet stream.

Do you guys watch cycling? Is it on tv in yur country?

More infos can you find here: Paris - Nice

iPhone 5 News

Hello folks,

today, as I am just not continuing my BA Thesis, a few news i read about the upcoming iPhone 5. First one is the idea of a complete new design, or more precise, a rollback in design, back to iPhone 3 or 3S but with an alu backside. Looks even a bit thinner and would be similar to the iPad2. Antenna-gate will be fixed for that, because the antenna here is behind the apple, like it is in common iMacs.



Second idea is a iPhone version seen in Hongkong, that has the new A5 processor and 64 GB of memory. The design is the same that it is now and in my opinion that seems to be more presumable that apple just holds the cycle and will change the design only every two years.

Which one do you prefer?

Darfur - How to make a poor movie out of a good idea

Okay folks,
Sunday is over, I am happy. But unfortunately I watched a movie yesterday in order to relax. Unfortunately? Yes, because I watches a Uwe Boll high quality production, named "Darfur" that deals with the civil war in the African desert. Islamic Terrorists called "Janjaweed" kill, rape and torture the civil African population.

Okay, the topic is important, especially because nobody seems to be interested in that conflict despite there are much more people killed than in the Gaza strip. But well, Uwe Boll who has also made "Rampage" (that has at least an interesting end), is not famous for doing so well. At least he isn't in Germany.

He uses a shakin' camera, that obviously suggests that everything happens in danger and in wildlife. A few Western journalists try to help ("Burden of the white man") a village of African people that is attacked by Janjaweed fighters. The have just a small gun and well, they fail. Then you see the cruelty of the massacre en détail and some stupid dialogues and thats it.

Originally a good idea, but a stupid plot without tension or personality. 4 stars out of 10 for brutality.

Sunday - Hangover Day

So folks,

yesterdays football was very nice. My team won and I was very drunk. Thats wy todays hangover really makes me sick. I just don't like sundays. For me they are the beginning of the next week, I am restless and cannot relax because I am already dealin with mondays tasks.

And on the other hand I can't really work because I have 1) a hangover 2) think that I need to relax and get fit for mondays tasks. So, you see it really is endless...

I think I am gonna watch a movie and will write a review here on the blog. Or do you have another idea? Do you like sundays?

Saturday Afternoon - Football time

Hey you guys,

today is saturday and that means to me, it is football time. Maybe it is interesting, especially for non-european readers, that here in Germany hundreds of thousands of people visit football matches every weekend.

I am pretty sure, most of them do it just in order to drink a lot of beer and to relax, but the passion of being fan of a certain club is also really important to most the people. Additionally, visit a football match live is not very expensive in Germany. Different to England or other countries you can buy a ticket for a stance, which will cost 5 to 15 euro.

And that is normally, what real and young fans do, they don't want to sit. Many people visit also games in second ord third or even fourth league, that is something people here do not focus on so much.

I guess now you know what I am going to do. I will have a lovely beer now and go to the stadium (temple). For all you people who don't watch football today, I have a nice video! Stay tuned!

The green wave - Movie about the Iran

And now to something completely different. Yesterday I just watched another movie, which really impressed me. The movie "The green wave" is an animated documentary about the protests in Iran two years ago.

Because there was no official media in Iran that reported about what happened, the movie uses blog entries and twitter tweets to tell the story. At least it ends up with the governement shooting on protestors and kidnap many of them.

It is a very shocking movie, even there are no real protagonists and sometimes the "off-voice" is a bit pathetic. Although it is shocking to realize that many European countries support the governement in Iran.

I think it ist very useful for todays youth to see whats happening there, that the youth of Iran also is interested in freedom. So I give the movie 7 of 10 stars.

Bookends - My favourite Bibliography Software

Dear Friends and Followers,

today will be a productive day, concerning my BA Thesis. I have five weeks left and today I want do finish my Introduction. As I already stated, Mellel is the word processor of my choice.

But that is just the first half of the story. The second one is Bookends, a great bibliography software. I just put all the data of a book or a chapter or an essay in it and when I quote something in Mellel, Bookends links it to the source.

When I am finished with my paper, I let Bookends check all the quotations and voilà: It will create a bibliography. The format of the quotation is highly flexible.

I can really suggest to use these two applications. The best is, if you buy both together, you will get a great discount.

So far,
I need to work now!

Apple Keynote today - Release of iPad 2?

So people,

this evening is going to be an Apple evening. Exactly, 10 am in San Franciso means 6 or 7 pm in Germany, or as we say 18 Uhr.

Unless I am not a fanboy, I will watch the Keynote because they will present the iPad2 and I am interested in the new feature.

I am hoping for a better resolution and a nice extra, like free MobileMe or an HD cam for the iPad2.

But I think I won't buy it anyway and will wait how the tablet market will develop. Guess its time to try a nice Android tablet, especially because the Appstore is not that restrictive like the Apple one.

As you can see at the pictures, the crazy Asians have already made a clone of the new Apple device - or will the new iPad look like that? I don't think so, what about you?

Are going to watch the Keynote, or don't you care about the new iPad?

Too cold to bike

Hey folks,

today I read a lot for my BA Thesis, but anyway after some time I needed stress relaxation. So I decided to pick my bike, its a racing bike, and just ride for a while.
 
But then I realized, that it was just about zero degrees, I don't know what that in Fahrenheit is. It was very cold and I went back home and took a very hot shower. Oh yeah that was great.

But the question was still, what kind of relaxation should I use? Any suggestions?

The pic shows my great bike. It was very expensive. Just looking for spring!

Warning - this movie might harm your brain

Hi Folks,
this blog is not only about study topics - but also about the most interesting ways how not to study and doing something else :-)

So yesterday I felt a bit tired and decided to watch "Splice" with Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. What starts as a low budget criticism of modern genetic experiments becomes a ridiculous  piece of "Frankensteins"trash copy. It ends up (spoiler!) with all having sex with all, what makes no sense but seems to be an adequat end in the directors mind (Vincenzo Natali, made "Cube").

Don't know why Adrien Brody does such a bad movie...

2 of 10 Stars in the famous Baxxmans evaluation! Don't waste your time.