Google My Maps

Under http://maps.google.com/maps there's a great new mashup whereby you can put together your own maps, and annotate it with your own placemarks, including photos etc.



I tried this out by making a map of some of the sights we saw in Amsterdam over Easter:



click here to examine the map.

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Liam's Birthday

Liam celebrated his 2nd birthday on Monday. He kicked off with muffins for breakfast,...

From Liam's Second...

then he had all his classmates sing for him at the creche...

From Liam's Second...

then we brought himself and some of his friends to the park for the afternoon.

From Liam's Second...

Full pictures of the proceedings are to be found here

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The Psychic Skeptic

Australian skeptic Karen Stollznow has a fascinating account of her application to become a phone line psychic. The company claimed to have a very thorough testing regime, in order to ensure that only those with real psychic gifts could qualify. They even went so far as to say that less than 5% of applicants would be deemed acceptable by their high standards.

The bulk of the article describes Karen's progress through the tests, using only the skills of pop psychology and occasional bullshitting. To find out how far these skills can get you in the world of Psychic make-believe, read the story here.

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Podiobooks

After getting the tip about Podiobooks from net@nite #17, I've been trying out Podiobooks. The concept is pretty simple: an audio book released on an RSS feed like a podcast. The price is compelling, yes, it's free, i.e. ad-supported.

Scott Sigler was the author interviewed, he had written and agreed publishing terms for Earthcore in 2001, but after the September 11 attacks the publisher clammed up. Desperate to get published, he started reading the book himself as a podcast in 2005 on Podiobooks. Now an established author, he has several other books for sale, see his website. Amazingly, he says his ad-generated income from Podiobooks is still higher than that which he gets from selling paper copies!

This kind of cutting out the middleman is exactly what the internet is good at, and it's great to see it succeed without any DRM or other nasty stuff. I'll go the same way with my novel, whenever I get around to writing one ;-)

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Posting from ScribeFire

As the tag at the bottom of this post indicates, I'm experimenting with ScribeFire, a Firefox extension which allows you to create and publish posts in the bottom segment of the browser. This is actually pretty handy, as for the most part when I post, I'm checking some sot of online information source anyway. Now this is in the top half of the window, while I type in the bottom half. Recommended.

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News from last week - Ultrasound #4 all ok

A quick snippet that I meant to post last week, but forgot. Heike had her 4th ultrasound at Week 25, all is well. The prediction of a girl still stands, anyone who has Irish girl names to suggest please feel free to use the Comment box

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Easter Weekend in Amsterdam

From Easter in Ams...

Heike, Liam and I spent the Easter weekend in Amsterdam with Hans-Günther, Tina and a collection of the Kurpfälzer Trabanten regulars. The photographic evidence is catalogued in the Picasa gallery here.

Our accommodation was in the Hotel Arena, a converted orphanage apparently. I'd definitely recommend this place as a good compromise of price, comfort and central location. In addition, the rooms have a wacky charm, with the beds positioned in an upper floor within the room. Liam had a lot of fun throwing things down from the bed onto the living area below.

Of course sightseeing in Amsterdam was interesting. Previous visits for me were either passing through or work-related, so sights like the Palace and Niewe Kerk were mandatory. On Sunday we visited the Artis Zoo, which was a great day out for Liam. He especially liked the crocodiles, and insisted that he wanted to take the 3-metre-long specimen home with him...

The only downside to the trip was that on the way home, Liam had an upset tummy, and had to have several changes of clothes as the contents of his alimentary canal came out one way or the other. Fortunately a night's sleep at home put him back on his feet again.

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Irish Smoking Ban reduces air pollution, improves health

The Spiegel links to this interesting article about the positive effects of the Irish smoking ban. Since the ban in 2004, the carcinogens in pub air has drastically reduced, and the health of the 81 bar staff in the study has significantly improved.
The Deutsche Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ - German Cancer Research Centre) are pointing to this study as important input into the upcoming decision on Germany's implementation of a smoking ban. The public support for a ban in Germany is growing - now 67% favour Rauchverbot, compared to 53% just a year ago.
The only thing standing in the way seems to be the rather arcane workings of the German federal system (the smoking ban has to be implemented by the Länder rather than Bund, and needs more consensus because of this). For example, Bavaria wants to exclude Oktoberfest tents, and Saarland small pubs.
The Irish study proves that the health benefits are more important than these provincial exceptions, so let's hope we get some clean air in Germany.

Liam plays with Tell

On Saturday evening Liam, Heike and I visited Eike on the occasion of his xxth birthday. Eike's dog Tell looks remarkably like Othello, which is maybe one reason why Liam has always liked him. On the other hand, we have yet to meet a dog that Liam doesn't like...
More photos of this birthday celebration in the Photo Gallery.

Celina and Liam

On Saturday Heike's aunt and cousins visited from Obervolkach, and the Schwab family congregated at her brother Harald's house. I used this opportunity to take a few pictures of Liam and his cousin Celina, they look really cute together.
The full set of pictures can be found in the Photo Gallery.

Weekend in Mayrhofen

I deserted my pregnant wife and infant son for a couple of days, and spent the weekend skiing in Mayrhofen together with my parents (more correctly, skiing with my father, dining with both parents).
The lack of snow this year has been well documented, so I was a bit worried that we'd just be sliding over grass. However when on my arrival in the Zillertal on Saturday morning, it was snowing in the car park. I had intended to go up to the Hintertux glacier on Saturday, but given the weather conditions I stopped at Eggalm, a smallish area which in a normal year is connected to the rest of the Zillertal Arena. This is not a normal year, so the connecting runs were closed, but I wasn't all that bothered as the view was restricted to 20 metres most of the time, so it didn't matter which landscape I couldn't see ;-)
On Saturday evening I met up with my parents, and had a pleasant dinner with them. Heike and I had hoped to travel en famille so that Liam could see his grandparents again, but we couldn't get a room in their hotel. Instead, I got a single room outside of town, which would have been not so good for Liam.
On Sunday the weather was perfect, blue skies and sunshine. My father and I skiied all over the Penken area, and had a great time. I enjoy skiing with my dad, because he's just as impatient as I am, refusing to take rests or anything sensible like that. It meant we were both pretty tired by the end of the day, but as I'm unlikely to get skiing again until next year, it was worth it.

GoogLiam

I'm happy to announce that Google's latest multi-billion dollar acquisition is the right to use our son's name. The new Google Service, GoogLiam, will be a step beyond Web 2.0, direct to Web 3.7, where a multi-tasking, multi-dimensional, multi-paradigm outfrastructure evolves with the aid of polychronistic podblog memetics to build Next Generation stickywikis.

Unfortunately Liam has already spent his billions on Bob the Builder trucks, so further Venture Capital funding is required. I'll be adding the PayPal donation button soon.

PS. If you want your own name googled, go here.

Ultrasound #3

Liam and I accompanied Heike to the third ultrasound of this pregnancy today (this is week 21 of 40 - time flies!). All measurements are spot on, the new baby Cassidy is doing well.
At the first ultrasound, the prediction was a boy, for the second the baby did not turn to a viewable position, and today it looked like a girl. Naturally we're happy with whatever comes out, but I'm curious all the same. I think we'll avoid buying any blue or pink clothing until after the birth - s/he will look great in white for the first few days.

Google Reader

As many of you know, I'm a bit of a Google fanboy, using as I do GMail, Google Talk, Google Earth, Google Analytics, Blogger, Picasa, Calendar, and of course Search in all its forms. Thus it may not come as a surprise that I'm very impressed with the Google RSS Reader. Even so, I like it so much that I feel I have to recommend it.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and basically enables you to subscribe to news and blogs without visiting each site. This blog for example, can be read entirely by pasting the URL "http://www.macartan.de/rss.xml" into a news reader. The news reader then fetches the updates as soon as I post them, which is much more convenient that manually checking my site each day.
There are many web-based and client RSS readers available these days, see here for a list. Up to a few weeks ago, I used a combination of Thunderbird and Firefox, and was very happy with both.
Then I stumbled upon the Google Reader. Like most Google products, it's browser-based, so there's no need to install anything. All you need is a Google account. Then add a few feeds and away you go. You don't even need to know the feed URL, e.g. for this feed just click "Add subscription", type "macartan.de", and the Reader finds the URL for you.
The beauty of the web-based system is that regardless of what machine you happen to be using, your feeds are always there, and the read items always synced. The integration with Firefox 2.0 is particularly smooth, so that Reader Subscribe and Next buttons can easily be placed on the Task bar. There's even a Firefox add-on which keeps count of your unread items at the bottom of the browser (I'm on 723 unread today, feedreading is difficult at weekends :-).
Apart from reading your news and blogs, Google Reader also gives you the opportunity to share and email what you read. You can even set up a feed of what you're sharing. For example, on macartan.de, there's a box with "Macartan's shared items" - this shows what I've found interesting in my news and blogs recently.
Note this is a beta product, and stability is still an issue. I see an "Oops, an error has occurred" occasionally, but you can usually just hit the Home link and start again.
Try it out yourselves.

Conservapedia

I was telling Heike about how funny Conservapedia is at breakfast this morning. She'd not heard about it, so I thought I'd post a quick review...
This site has been generating laughs in the blogosphere during the last couple of weeks. In the words of the authors:

"Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia.
Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness"."

I'm not making this up! I recommend the following links if you want some insight into how the other half thinks (or doesn't):

• Above-mentioned Examples of Bias in Wikipedia - this includes criticism of "foreign spelling", (favour, labour rather than favor, labor); liberal bias ("Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public") and bias on evolution ("even though most Americans reject the theory of evolution Wikipedia editors commenting on the topic are nearly 100% pro-evolution").
• Evolution - apparently it "violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics". These people are so on top of their science.
  
• Homosexuality - The article lists 4 Bible entries saying "don't do it" (shame they missed the opportunity to list the Bible entries supporting slavery).
• Reagan - "Considered by many to be the greatest American President" - who are the "many"? I don't know any of them socially.
• Bill Clinton - clearly this article was always going to be critical, but this criticism is special - "Clinton also attempted to use the American military to kill Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, an action which was properly seen as a mere attempt to distract the nation from the Monica Lewinsky scandal". Scandalous waste of military resources - chasing the planners of 9/11.
  
• World War II - short, sweet, America wins. Has to be read to be believed.
  
• Germany - "A country in central Europe that was blamed for both Wolrd Wars and claimed to be the dominate race of mankind." That's the whole entry, spelling mistake and all.
• Gun Control - " A superior means of defense for the population is the first reason why guns should be carried by citizens". Scary article.
  

All in all hilarious - the unfortunate thing is these guys don't even realise they're parodying themselves.
I'd like to write a thoughtful critique of how I love America, but fear their government. However I'm starting to think that the America I love(d) is being systematically rebuilt as the America the world fears :-( Anyway, I have not time for thoughtful critiques - snap judgement says Conservapedia is bonkers.