Life in China | Dominik Mayer – Products, Asia, Productivity

It’s a great idea of the Munich city council to organize cultural and ecological events like the Streetlife-Festival while the closure of a main road in combination with unadjusted traffic lights might dampen the fun for those who can’t participate.

If the instructions on a T-shirt say “Do Not Tumble dry” then the T-shirt is not supposed to be in the tumble dryer. Not even for ten minutes. I’ll never ever give away my laundry.

Because the computer here in Cham is almost seven years old and not the fastest one, I gave Xfce a try. There are still some problems with the panel, especially the task bar which only shows question marks instead of the window titles. So at home, I’ll stick to GNOME but Xfce is really speedy and probably the best desktop environment for this machine.

The lecture Produktentwicklung und Konstruktion (PuK), product development and construction design) teaches how to generate various ideas for technical products.

How would you close a pitted, almond-filled date? I used, amongst others, excess pressure while the proposed solutions contained throwing it on the ground as well as shooting two balls at it.

Today’s exam was trickier, it was about a highly realistic bicycle trainer which permitted tilting and could simulate inclines.

The freshmen wrote their mechanics exam this morning, so there’s only information technology left. My last one for the time being is flight mechanics which will start in 50 minutes. Wish me luck.

(It’s time that it ends, my script starts to fall apart.)

1. Flight Mechanics I is not Flight Mechanics II. The same applies for the exams.
2. Mechanics exams were longer two years ago.
3. On a late trip to the botanical garden it’s advisable to visit the greenhouses first.
4. If you want someone reluctant to come along, you just need to find the right person for asking.
5. Bavarian politician Gabriele Pauli wants marriage to automatically end after seven years unless it’s been renewed.
6. Coming back from Sweden to Germany is like switching from a monthly to a strip ticket.
7. Pizza in TribüHne is inexpensive and tasty.
8. You better don’t eat anything in China and use tap water only for showering, bottled water for everything else.

I did it again, another experiment. No LEGO this time, today was all about cruising. Driving a BMW 6 Series in a simulator seemed to be fun. It seemed. Instead, I got a chance to gain first-hand experience of how you feel when the motions you see don’t correspond to the ones you sense…. not good. The whole simulation didn’t even feel like driving a real car. The automatic transmission was odd and the steering had a delay.

I actually managed to run over a pedestrian and the fact that I hadn’t noticed it at all didn’t help me answering the question of how I thought the accident could have happened. I chose “I didn’t see the pedestrian.” But I saw the next one I hit… continuing his way.

I’ve been to the Botanical Garden München-Nymphenburg on Wednesday and regret that I haven’t visited it before.

The Shanghai Botanical Garden is definitely on my list of things I have to see there.

Same (white) T-shirt, different actor. I accidentally put it to the dark laundry resulting in a new, light grey color. Some bleach should do the job.

Joachim Müller of Chinesisch Lernen discovered a nice web site about China:

Picture China is a photographic journey through contemporary China. From the teeming metropolises of the east coast to the rural villages of the interior to the lofty Tibetan plateau, New York City based photographer Dan Eckstein traveled 10,000km over the course of eight weeks to document this rapidly changing country. The result is a unique portrait of life in modern China and the issues that its people face.

(Quote: Picture China)

A friend that pokes me at least once a day in facebook just invited me to SuperPoke! We reached a new level…

A friend who had seen “Die große Welt der Filmmusik” (The Great World of Film Scores) earlier this year was delighted, and desperate to attend the sequel. I came along and was thrilled by the Klassik Radio Pops Orchestra and its conductor Nic Raine. The concert ended with two encores and richly deserved standing ovations. Nic Raine and presenter Holger Wemhoff even took the time to sign autographs and chat with the guests.

I dug around YouTube and found videos for most of the scores they had played. Don’t mind the images as they don’t always fit, just listen to the music.

• 20th Century Fox Fanfare (Alfred Newman)

• The Magnificent Seven (Elmer Bernstein)

• Harry Potter Themes (John Williams)

• Lawrence of Arabia (Maurice Jarre)

• The Sea Hawk (Erich Wolfgang Korngold)

• Wilde (Debbie Wiseman)

• Winnetou (Martin Böttcher)

• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, Tom Tykwer)

• Born Free (John Barry)

• Gremlins (Jerry Goldsmith)

• Gladiator (Hans Zimmer)

• Cinema Paradiso (Ennio Morricone)

• Out of Africa (John Barry)

• Il Postino (Luis Bacalov)

• Doctor Zhivago (Maurice Jarre)

• Lord of the Rings (Howard Shore)

• Driving Miss Daisy (Hans Zimmer)

• Caravans - Suite (Mike Batt)

Zlango claims to be “the universal icon language”. I’m sceptical. It reminds me of all those tiny little pictures in the Chinese books trying to point out how the sign for “horse” developed from the drawing of the animal.

A real problem is the fact that they have very few icons and I have to admit that I wouldn’t understand most of them. Another analogy to Chinese…

Classic car show at the marketplace of my great-aunt’s hometown, on her 85th birthday.