Moral und Hypermoral (1969) is the final work of German philosopher Arnold Gehlen (1904–1976), today somewhat forgotten except among German philosophy students and niche conservatives. I confess that I started reading him myself only recently, obviously far too late. He’s well worth a recommendation, and in this spirit I append a translation of the beginning […]
Aside from his work as an eminent physicist, Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) produced “massive groundbreaking” publications on medieval science (which I have yet to read) and a classic book on the theory of science, La théorie physique, son objet et sa structure. The original (1906) is available on Archive.org, and so is the excellent German translation […]
Click for Photo Gallery – read on for background information. Munich’s Hellabrunn zoo was founded in 1911 as the first “geo-zoo” in the world. Animals live spacious enclosures, often without any significant barriers at all, that are organized in geographic clusters. Harmless animals that are used to human contact, from goats to peacocks, are free […]
I rather happily used a Dell XPS 15 for the last 1.5 years, but there was no denying that its NVidia GT 750M mobile video card was getting rather long in the tooth. It could just about handle the Steam edition of Rise of Nations at 1080p but even the more complex Zen Pinball tables […]
Algorithms in a Nutshell — George T. Heineman, Gary Pollice & Stanley Selkow, O’Reilly 2016 (2nd ed.), ISBN 978-1-491-94892-7 This fairly slim book covers the basics of algorithmics and benchmarking, and also provides pseudocode and implementations (in C/C++, Java, and Python) for nearly 40 important algorithms. The major drawback is obvious when you consider that […]
I must admit that I grew rather disappointed with Sid Meier’s Civilization V once the initial enthusiasm wore off. The simplicity of the original Jon Shafer design looked appealing at first, but on closer examination was neither very elegant nor as conducive to a strong AI opponent as one might have hoped. After many erratic […]
Modern enthusiast-level compact cameras, i.e. those whose image sensor is smaller than “full frame” (24×36 mm or “35 mm”) and which may use fixed rather than interchangeable lenses, tend to be advertised with surprisingly excellent lens parameters. Generous zoom lengths of hundreds of millimeters are combined with very bright f-numbers of f/2 or less. Users […]
Core Java, Volume I: Fundamentals — Cay S. Horstmann, Prentice Hall (Oracle) 2015 (10th ed. for Java SE 8), ISBN 978-0-13-417730-4 Core Java, Volume II: Advanced Features — Cay S. Horstmann, Prentice Hall (Oracle) 2016 (10th ed. for Java SE 8), ISBN 978-0-13-417729-8 [not yet published] These 1000-page tomes originated as Sun’s official guide to […]
CSS: The Missing Manual — David Sawyer McFarland, O’Reilly 2015 (4th ed.), ISBN 978-1-491-91805-0 McFarland’s eminently practical book explains the structure and features of CSS from the perspective of a raw beginner. This does lead to some amusing baby steps, such as the introductory section on “mouse clicks,” but don’t let that deter you. McFarland […]
I uploaded some photos from a visit to the Munich Olympiapark, created to house the 1972 Olympic Games. Six are views from the observation platform of the Olympiaturm, located at a height of 190 m along the 291 m tall tower. Four are from the Sea Life Center that happens to be located nearby and […]