Kindle

I got my new toy two days ago: Amazons Kindle, a Christmas present from my parents. Do I like it? Let me put it like this: If you are going to read books electronically, do it on an e-ink device. The difference to an LCD screen is amazing - it really looks like (albeit glossy) paper. You quickly get used to the page-refresh, which rapidly blanks the page before displaying a new one - this eliminates 'ghosting', where you can see some remnants of the old page because the electrophoresis in the pixels wasn't complete. The refresh only takes a fraction of a second, anyway.

Don't get me wrong, I love reading real books, but my book-shelf real estate is limited, and has run out some time ago. Plus, there is something neat in having a couple of hundred books stored on a device that weighs only a couple of hundred grams.

Close-up of Kindle display

I do hope e-ink continues to make advances, especially in terms of the refresh-rate, for I would love to see it used as a display for tablet PCs, phones and the like. Yay progress!

Bern and its mutant bears

An old bear-emblem, pre-ninja era

Bern, the capital of Switzerland is known for its bears. Has been known for its bears for centuries, in fact. It was founded in 1191 by Berthold V, Duke von Zähringen. 1193 it suffered a meteorite impact. Said meteorite had an unusually high concentration of Cobalt-60, and as a consequence the local bears mutated, becoming hyper-intelligent tool-users. They proliferated in the fertile lands around Bern, and several skirmishes (also known as Bärenchriege) were fought over the next years. Eventually Bern fell in 1218, with the Berthold V. suffering a gruesome death at the claws of the enraged bears, being torn apart atop the Zytglogge, the famous clock-tower of Bern. Berthold V. having no heirs to continue the war, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II had no choice but to leave the bears in control, declaring Bern a free imperial city.

The Zytglogge, where Berthold V. met his end

The bears joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1353, and stayed in power in Bern until being occupied by French troops in 1798, during the French Revolutionary wars. The bears vanished from public live. How and when they managed to contact the Tokugawa shogunate is hotly disputed by scholars, but it is clear that when they reappeared in 1848, they had been trained extensively as ninjas. The bears, now hyper-intelligent mutant ninja bears showed no inclination of retaking the reins of power, even though they certainly would have been capable of it. Instead, the seemed content to hang out in the Bärengraben, vanishing from it from time to time to conduct secret missions and assassinations, an activity they have continued to this day.

View of the Münster and Bern, from the Bärengraben

I personally nearly met my end on the hands of a slightly myopic ninja bear, who afterwards apologized profusely for mistaking me for his target, before leaping onto the rooftops and vanishing.

It was shear chance that the bear noticed I was not his target, a split-second before tearing out my throat.

Apart from these rare, unfortunate incidents, Bern is a very safe city for tourists, and the "Bärenlugen", trying to spot one of the illusive ninja bears in one of their many disguises, or on one of their clandestine missions, is a popular national past-time. Everything and everyone can be a bear, in Bern.

Depicted: A bear in disguise, emerging from his cave in spring.

A new dawn

Or at least one of the first I saw in 2011 in Lausanne.

Aiming for bi-weekly posts this year. Don't hold your breath.

Bollocks to this...

I am off to Vienna, for the holidays. If I make my connection in Zuerich, that is. Seems the vaunted Swiss punctuality can't deal with 20 cm of snow...


- tales from the road

Location:Rue des Saars,Neuchâtel,Switzerland

Morphologies: Before the fight

Another assignment in my drawing class: draw different morphologies. I chose to combine two: a long gaunt man and a fat, strong one.

Alternatively, I had a vision of an epic battle: the last chance of an impoverished teacher and his sole student. Every bit of money they can spare goes into the student's food, hence the  teachers gauntness. Is it a wonder he prays loudly to the gods before the fight, which may be their last chance to earn some much-needed money?

 I am quite happy with how the teacher turned out. Less happy with the sumo wrestler; I think I drew his hands and head a bit too big, they should be smaller on his (supposedly) massive frame. The background is a bit uninspired, I drew it as an afterthought, and it shows. I wish I would have given it a bit more thought before I started the drawing, I definitely will for the next one!

A woman taking a photo of her son with her cell phone, in Lausanne.

Thanksgiving

Being from the old continent, I don't really celebrate Thanksgiving. we have other feasts here, involving more interesting things than turkeys, such as pig's intestines or goose livers. Still, today the sudden urge struck me to hop on the wagon, as it were, and put something thanksgivensh up, so here is my most favourite video celebrating Thanksgiving:

Thanks, o Addams Family!

Batpigeon

The thing is, you never think much about all the pigeons watching Batman these days. Or did you, recently? Did you ponder the psychological effects of immersing the flight-capable descendants of the dinosaurs in a fictional world where a deranged multimillionaire is imitating the flapping source of his childhood trauma in a futile quest for justice? Didn't think so.

Oh, it'll be all right, we say. Let the poor, disease-ridden blighters have their fun - what else do they have between poisoned pigeon-food and anti-pigeon spikes? What harm can it do?

What harm can it do? Well, have a gander at this:

Yes, this is a deranged pigeon, thinking it is batman. And while one, lonely schizophrenic pigeon might be pitiful, or even funny in a sad, retarded way, think about how you feel when hordes of vigilante pigeons descend on the streets in a psychotic frenzy. How many pigeons are there in your city? Have a look outside. Look into their beady little eyes, judging you. And ask yourself: How much does a pigeon know about the concept of justice? Do you want it to act as your judge, jury and executioner? Do you?

Emotions: Joy, or: Modern Faerie

In my series of emotions (previously: surprise, rage, sadness and fear), I proudly present : Modern Faerie.

Life in the city is hard for faeries, and some fail to... adapt. Seeking solace in drugs, those poor creatures normally don't make it for long, and clapping your hands won't work here.

This is a drawing I've wanted to do for ages, but never felt up to. But when joy came up as a motive in my drawing course, I knew the time had come. Inked with a Pentel pocket brush on A4 paper, I am quite happy with how it turned out. Credit for the idea with the newspaper-wings goes to my teacher Julien.

In case you are curious about the process, here is a scan of the pencil drawing  I subsequently inked. Unfortunately I don't have any of the many preliminary sketches I did before, but I think I did at least eight before settling on this perspective and composition.

I was thinking of doing the same image in charcoal and chalk, but I think I will work on something different instead.

I feel like a scientist now

Pictured: Science

My first paper has been published:

Radio frequency breakdown between structured parallel plate electrodes with a millimetric gap in low pressure gases,

in Physics of Plasmas no less! It's the culmination of most of the stuff I did in the last three years, with maybe a second, more applied paper to follow next year.

If you really want to read it (and, frankly, who wouldn't?), but can't because you don't have access to Physics of Plasmas and don't want to shell out the thirty or so dollars they demand (shame on you! shame!), email me and I'll send you a pdf. Go on, email me! How else will you know how to properly construct your dark-space shielding?

Leather and drugs

I am back! Survived a brief bout of the flu - it must have been the Parisian flu, since I first felt ill at the conference in Paris. I didn't want to miss anything of the rather excellent conference, so I showed the flu who is boss, by eating copious amounts of paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin. This worked, to a degree, until I came back, laid off the drugs and was struck down by the Revenge of the Flu. Ugh.

But now I am better, and yesterday I spent four hours sewing. A year ago my favourite leather jacket's zipper broke, and yesterday the stars were finally right (Gliese 581 must be in just the right place in Librae for leather work!). I purchased a new zipper, a leather needle and set to work - you can see the result on the right. It works, and turned out less ugly than I had feared - everybody wins! Well except the old zipper. I tossed that bastard faster than you can say Gliese 581g may or may not exist.

Bollocks to this...

...I am off to Paris, to the 63rd Gaseous Electronics Conference. There may be some physics-related posts in the near future.

Sous vide, pork

I made a 24 hour pork roast yesterday (despite RelaxMax's disapproval) - my thanks go to Frank who informed me on how to rise the temperature of a rice cooker: just wrap it in a towel, since the warm setting has no temperature control, depending on the thermal properties of the cooker to reach its temperature.

Wrapping the rice cooker in a towel raised the temperature to 64 degrees Celsius. I seasoned the pork roast with some rosemary and thyme, and left it in its zip-lock back to stew for a day. Then I seared its outside in my trusty cast-iron pan (a roast is a bit too large to comfortably sear with my blowtorch). Very tender.

Sous vide, first try

I've been wanting to try out sous vide cooking for the longest time, unfortunately my kitchen is just too small to fit a water bath in. But recently I had a sudden brain storm - the rice cooker I recently bought has two different settings, cook and warm. And the warm setting maintains a temperature of 57 degrees Celsius. Perfect for a medium rare steak, but just too low for poultry. Yet a bit of experimentation showed that I could use the cook setting and a digital thermometer to set the temperature to, say, 63 degrees, and then the warm cycle would maintain it for two hours, easily. So I bought some turkey fillets and voilà:

Seal them into a zip-lock bag with some salt, pepper and herbs, drop it into the water and wait for two hours. The meat comes out delicious and tender. But Boris, I can hear you scream, what about the delicious Maillard reactions you get in a pan, the crunchy brown bits that impart so much of the flavour? Well, fear not, gentle reader: Enter my favourite kitchen tool, the blowtorch:

This is cooking the way I like it

Mmmh. Don't let the awful white-balance fool you, that piece of dead turkey was scrumptious.