Centroid.EU Blog

(this blog is mostly encrypted - adults only)

Reinhard Tgahrt, Rest In Peace

April 1st, 2017

Sadly, not an April Fools joke. Reinhard Tgahrt my uncle passed away last night. He would have been 81 years old on July 4th. What can I say here? Reinhard was an interesting person and a great uncle. He lived in Marbach not far from his workplace the Schiller Archive and Museum. I believe he loved his work. He loved poems and not just simple ones. I would recite one he said but I don't know where to look all I remember one he said was called "Endlich". I think I could dig out a long list of things he contributed to in Germanistics but it's all online. He was a great person, and I'd toast to his life with a pistachio that he loved to eat so much. I'm gonna keep it short so I'd end the conversation quickly like he always did with a simple, Adieu!

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Turned down the heat

March 27th, 2017

My "Nachtspeicher" heating system is turned down to 2 hours now, and I have set the setting on the units themselves to level 1. I hope I don't freeze, but today is extraordinarily warm in my apartment.

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Totally disagree with this SP.ON. article

March 27th, 2017

In this article on Spiegel Online the author fingers the EU and US industry at trying to weaken Germany. Dieselgate is the cause of that, but it was braught about by whom exactly? You got it. VW. And then he goes on to say somewhere in the article that up to 2 million people are indirectly dependent on the car industry and that if everyone bought an electric car that there would be job losses because the car makers are getting less money per e-car than any other emissions car. Now, I've been on the search for an electric car for the last little while and I smell hot air from this guy. For one, an electric car costs three times as much as it's emissions counterpart (Renault Zoe vs. Clio) with batteries included. So if the producers aren't pocketing great profits on this I'd be surprised. The fact that I mentioned Renault (a french maker) is that it's still cheaper than the german competition (Opel e-ampera, BMW, and VW E-Up and E-Golf), yet it's still expensive. Maybe he overlooked that many people want an electric car in this country and that the local automakers are letting us down. They slept, they lied and played with fire at dieselgate. And we're supposed to feel sorry for job losses? We should buy a friggen emissions car to keep some assmunch in their job and all they do is turn around and lie to us? No. I totally disagree with this guys sob story and I'll buy me a Zoe from surprise surprise not the korean dealer but the next neighbouring country over. VW should roast and pay up, because VW not only tarnished it's own leadership, engineering and staff but also all of Germanys reputation of honest craftsmanship and engineering. You guys can bring all the sobstories you want, you don't get me feeling sorry for you.

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What science should focus on in my opinion

March 27th, 2017

Science in all of history has largely been a trial and error method. There was a hypothesis and if some work surrounding that hypothesis matched then there was material for a positive conclusion. In these days we have a great system of many many hypothesis's and we get a bit of positive conclusions out of it.

I personally get angry when I see people working with rare elements and "waste" their time with it. Such as gold. Why gold? Just because some guy put it on his crown and shield and it looks nice why do we waste our time with it? It has no value to me.

I personally would like to see scientist try out the most abundant elements that we have on earth (32.1% iron, 30.1% oxygen, 15.1% silicon, 13.9% magnesium 2.9% sulfur, 1.8% nickel.. stop). Let's work with the ones that are over 10% so iron, oxygen, silicon and magnesium. Also we should look to the Universe and see what elements are abundant there. Hydrogen and Helium. So we have six elements that we should be focusing science around. Forget the rest they aren't important enough! One element we could be working with is Carbon but let's keep it at that. So seven elements in total.

I have dug up this chart from wikipedia which I find pretty interesting:

We should be doing science with the most abundant of elements because there may come a time when we're short of everything and can only use what's immediately available. Does it not make sense? To me it does.

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Ex-Ledward Barracks starting to be demolished

March 26th, 2017

On December 9th, 2014 I reported about the American Forces leaving Schweinfurt. Now there is the first demolishing of the old Barracks I just read in the mainpost our local newspaper. They have designated the east wing of the barracks for schooling, in particular the local college FH W"urzburg- Schweinfurt. I haven't seen it in real life yet but I'm sure one would not recognize it again. Strangely I read somewhere a few weeks ago that the US Army is seeking for new Barracks in Northern Germany. That is ex-british territory in the division that happened after WW2. I disagree with President Trump that Germany "owes" the US money over protection. The remaining US forces in Germany are remains of the second world war of an invasion force, why would we pay a cent for that? Why we'd be crazy. Our military can be modified to give us a reasonable protection without NATO forces on our soil, and in a jiffy at that. Anyhow "interests" cost money so much is clear. And it's in the US best interest that Germany doesn't get invaded by the Russians even if Germany doesn't pay the Trump government. In regards to conscription which is something Sweden re-introduced recently, there is probably a chance that Germany will re-introduce it too in the foreseeable future to come. This is simply because when forced there is more potential good soldiers that become "career" soldiers. Currently the advertising of the Bundeswehr is probably not effective in finding the right persons. That's just a prediction of mine, as I don't really know as I never had to serve because I lived in a foreign country at the age when people get conscripted. So I barely missed out.

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Last night Europe turned on Summer Time

March 26th, 2017

When I type date on a UN*X system it says this:

Sun Mar 26 10:52:20 CEST 2017

ahhh! finally summer time CEST! I was once vehemently against the switch at all, but now I just don't care anymore. It would be nicer to have no summer time but then again, who cares!

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When Algorithms Fail Humans

March 23rd, 2017

I sent a resume to some place that was hiring. Their algorithm scored my mail as a spam mail due to the .pdf attachment that was my resume. I sent a followup a few weeks later asking if they saw my resume and by then they realised that my mail was not spam. Unfortunately for me, the position for the job was then already filled. I believe this is one case where an algorithm failed humans. Or is it sheer bad luck? Between the mailings I changed my SPF record to a TXT record as per RFC 7208, which changed in April 2014 and my anti-spam setup was outdated.

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Tomorrow is Equinox

March 19th, 2017

At 10:28 UTC is equinox. That is when the sun crosses the equator of earth. You may have guessed then, that this only happens twice a year. Officially after the sun crosses the equator in either direction somewhere on earth it is spring and otherwhere on earth it is autumn. Namibia is starting autumn, and Germany is starting spring. That's just how it is in the march equinox.

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The only way to outdo Facebook/Google/Silicon Valley and Co.

March 19th, 2017

When european politicians talk about restricting facebook for example, it won't do. The only way to beat facebook and apply european law is to create a competitor platform that offers more than facebook, ie. competing against it. We are eons behind in this so it's not easy to outdo facebook and google. But if politicians would have the will to work with private enterprises to create a competitor platform by investing billions (that's how much it would cost), then and only then will the european user be under a european law-umbrella.

Politicians don't realise this though. They think it is sooo easy to create a digital border in "cyberspace". It won't do. Half the people on facebook are addicted to it and emotionally bonded to it. The only way to break the spell is to break it with another spell, like mentioned above. With european law there must come law evolution meaning that some laws are perhaps not in europes best interests, and serve only a minority. Anyhow. Here is a question to local politicians then "how long will europe have to be beaten technologically for you to realise politics can't save us?". Put up.

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We're 10 cm's from the Sun (1mm)

March 16th, 2017

I saw this youtube clip partially until he set the distance to Jupiter. If the Sun was 1 mm in diameter (radius off wikipedia says 695,700 km) then the earths to scale distance I worked out to 107 mm or 10.7 cm given that the distance of an astronomical unit (AU) is 149,597,870 km. In the video astrium goes on to say that Mars is 16 cm's from the Sun. I proofed the distance with earth today and had some discrepancies until realising that 2 * radius == diameter. :-)

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