Erlangen

Erlangen is a small town. The lonely planet guide spends about 1 page on it, while other guides don't even mention it.

Siemens is the big thing in this town. It is the dominant company and there are many offices littered around the town. So having a street named after the founder of the company is not that strange.


The other big thing about Erlangen is the University. The former town palace, now serves as the administration building. There is a nice park at the back of the palace (the picture is taken from the park), and it is quite a nice place to come and relax.




There are also a number of chruches in Erlangen. Most churches are closed down, or in the verge of closing down. There are not many parishoners it seems. The first is a Lutheran church (Martin Luther Church IIRC ... well it is at the Martin Luther Platz :P). The second is the massive church at Hugenotten Platz, which now serves as a major bus station. The last is a church close to where I work, on the outskirts of Erlangen. It was interesting simply because it has a memorial to the soldiers who died in WW 1, presumably from the town.



An interesting change from Berlin is the amalgamation of the old and the new. I not only mean the McDonalds in a really old building, but even life in general seems to be a mixture of the old and the new. For example, there is still a large open air market that seems to do a brisk trade even though there is large mass retailers, two literraly stones throws from this market (well large is relative, and this does not really compare to Hamburg Fischmarkt).

The New FIA Verdict

Some recent developments in the Formula 1 Spy scandal. Since the last post, the FIA managed to get more evidence, and dragged McLaren back infront of the World Motor Sports Council yesterday. The evidence is, in short, startling.

Comprising of mostly communication logs and some details of the communication, it is hard to hold any respect for McLaren as a sporting team, or take Ron Dennis' word that it was only a rogue employee who was involved in holding data from Ferrari illegally. The evidence, as described in the FIA's press release (pdf, autosport.com) is damning.

Some of the really damning evidence is in the email logs between Pedro de la Rosa, Mike Coughlan and current F1 World Champion Fernando Alonso.

3.5 On 21 March 2007 at 09.57 Mr. de la Rosa wrote to Coughlan in the following terms:

"Hi Mike, do you know the Red Car's Weight Distribution? It would be important for us to know so that we could try it in the simulator. Thanks in advance, Pedro.

p.s. I will be in the simulator tomorrow."

3.6 In his evidence given to the WMSC, Mr. de la Rosa confirmed that Coughlan replied by text message with precise details of Ferrari's weight distribution.

3.9 Mr. de la Rosa replied on 25 March 2007 13.02 stating the following:

"All the information from Ferrari is very reliable. It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic - I don't know what post he holds now. He's the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi was stopping in lap 18. He's very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our Chief Designer, and he told him that."

tyre gas

3.13 Mr de la Rosa's e-mail to Mr. Alonso on 25 March 2007 at 01.43 identified a gas that Ferrari uses to inflate its tyres to reduce the internal temperature and blistering. The e-mail concludes with a statement (in relation to the gas) that "we'll have to try it, it's easy!".

3.14 Mr Alonso replied at 12.31 that it is "very important" that McLaren test the gas that Ferrari uses in its tyres as "they have something different from the rest", and "not only this year. there is something else and this may be the key; let's hope we can test it during this test, and that we can make it a priority!".

3.15 Mr. de la Rosa replied on 25 March 2007 13.02 stating the following: I agree 100% that we must test the [tyre gas] thing very soon.

After this level of evidence, how can it be possible that no one else in McLaren knew about what Coughlan was up to? Drivers are supported by huge technical staff, and even simulators are hardly about popping into the local arcade.

The FIA's verdict however is still puzzling. The full verdict:

9.2 The WMSC therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the International Sporting Code, imposes the following sanctions relation to the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship:

- a penalty consisting of exclusion from and withdrawal of all points awarded to McLaren in all rounds of the 2007 Constructors' Championship. For the avoidance of doubt, McLaren will be permitted to race in the remaining rounds of the 2007 Championship but will not be permitted to score points in the Constructors Championship or attend the podium in the event of a top three finish in any of the remaining races in the 2007 season. Points scored by other competitors in the Championship to date will not be affected further to the withdrawal of McLaren's points;

- a fine of USD100 million (less any sum that would have been payable by Formula One Management Limited on account of McLaren's results in the 2007 Constructors Championship had it not been excluded). This fine shall be payable within three months from the date of this Decision.

The drivers were given immunity in exchange for full co-operation, and can still carry on their (current winning) position of fighting for the World Driver's Championship. In the interest of the show, there are still 5 drivers with a mathematical possibility of winning the WDC, and 3 with a real chance of winning it. So, in terms of the entertainment value, nothing is lost. And as discussed in this Guardian commentary there is a precedent for this.

What puzzles me is why McLaren's fine is pegged to their on track performance? After all, wasn't the spy saga all about using rival team's information to advance their own performance on track?

As for the WDC, it is tainted this year. There will always be an asterisk next to whoever wins this year. The case is off course far from over - there are still criminal charges pending for Nigel Stepney and civil action against Mike Coughlan. But what is most absurd is that Mike Coughlan still has his job ...

A Few Days Without Rain

Yay. It has finally stopped raining in Erlangen. Wednesday was the first day, since I have been here, when there was no rain; and has yet to rain since. While day time temeperatures are certainly T-Shirt range, it is still cold (6-8 degrees C) in the morning. Unfortunately, weather forecasts seem to indicate that it will start raining during the weekend :(

This Carlesque post was inspired by Enya's Album. :p

Foo Bar

I have always wondered the history of using fooand bar in computer programs. RFC 3092 sheds some light.

RFCs or Request for Comments are one of the key foundations to standards on the Internet, and increasingly standards generally for computer systems. But I came across RFC 1121 by chance, and stumbled onto a set of RFCs that are funny or just plain weird ... inside jokes etc. Quite a big list of them here.

Lots of reading for the bored :P

TV Blues

Somehow, TVs and I have not got on well this past year. There was the story of my TV card at the beginning of the year. And two more incidences from the last week to add to the list.

Firstly, I bought a really old TV from a student for €15. It worked for a while, but doesn't any more. It is to be expected really ... don't think I was intentionally sold a bad TV ... it is old, and to be expected.

Then, acting on Hans' recommendation (and doing what I should have done initially), I got myself a DVB-T stick. It is actually a very cool device: very small and compact, and works quite well. Except for two things:

1. Erlangen does not seem to have any digital TV coverage of the two channels with mostly English content (CNN and MTV).
2. The reception in my apartment for Eurosport (for the Rugby WC) and RTL (for Formula 1), the two German channels I want most, is almost non existent. It does work elsewhere ... I have tried it in a park for example, and was watching F1 on Sunday while surfing the net at a Cafe!

And to mess it all up, the TV cable in my room seems to be analogue only (probably a Cable TV source). The channel that works best however carries football, some Bundesliga matches and some Euro qualifiers. So it is not all that bad I suppose ...

Baby it's cold outside

So it is the beginning of September, so it should be the beginning of autumn, end of summer. For the last few days, the temperature in Erlangen has been 8 degrees C, around 8:30 am in the morning. In fact, if it was not for the fact that there is no wind, the weather would be the same as Cape Town winter. To be honest, I am not really looking forward to winter ...

As for the title of this post. It is the title of the first part of the Power of Nightmares documentary (BBC, Wikipedia, previous blog post, IMDB), which traces the influence of a famous hit song (academy award winner too) on the rise of both radical Islam and the Neo-Conservatives in the USA.

I blame Carl for influencing the naming of blog posts on song titles. :P

Goodbye Berlin, Hello Erlangen

While Erlangen is certainly not a one horse town, it is certainly a lot smaller than Berlin. It is big enough to warrant a stop for the Intercity Express Trains, but not big enough to have more than one train station.

For the most part, I really enjoyed Berlin. It is a very lively city, with a lot of things to do. It is one of the best cities I have lived in. I took an Intercity express out of Berlin (one of the very regular Hamburg-Munich trains), and had a very nice trip. The seats are more comfortable and offer more legroom than economy class seats in aeroplanes: and considering the lack of security checks and waiting at the airports, the comparative journey times is only slightly longer.

The first major stop on the way was Leipzig, and I must admit, that the scenery was nothing to look at: like the trip to Hamburg, just rolling fields. Even the towns that we passed seemed to be rather boring. The train was trying to make up for lost time however (it arrived 20 minutes late from Hamburg) and for the most part travelled at 200Km/h. After Leipzig the train slowed down considerably, but the scenery was a lot better: more mountains, forests and rivers, and it was only when we neared Erlangen, that it picked up speed again. I am not sure why it slowed down: could be the track or incline. I was at the front end of the train (well it was actually the back end in Berlin, but the train changed directions at Erlangen) and the drivers compartment was all glass from the inside, so you could see the driver drive the train: very cool, and a very pleasant change from the aeroplane cockpits.

Before I left, Hans-Peter warned me that, except for cafes and restaurants, most things were closed on Sundays. In Berlin, there was no evidence of this, but in Erlangen, it seems many cafes and restaurants are closed too! And while I was expecting a lot higher prices (Berlin is reputed to be one of the cheapest cities in Germany and in fact Europe), my current experience has been the opposite. Time will tell.

The place I am staying has both its good and bad. The good: it is very close to the main town centre, and basically everything is walking distance. The bad: I am trying to work out whether my room in Kopano was bigger than the apartment I am staying in now ... I think Kopano is winning :P

Perfect Score

The perfect score for the bowling game in the Nokia 6020 (and other phones in the same series/year I suppose) is 300. Once you find the perfect way to roll the ball, it is really easy. The downside of this: I have one less thing to do when bored and with nothing other than a cell phone. I just wish real life ten-pin bowling was this easy.

Shit Happens

Just a bit more than 12 hours left in Berlin, and I lock myself out of the apartment. Thanks to Martin, I did get a locksmith, who opened it for a nice sum of 186 Euros. A very expensive mistake, and I certainly hope that I learn from it. Oh well, shit happens.

In a way, it also shows the difference in mentality. I found out that some people leave their spare keys in their postboxes. Would you consider doing something like that in South Africa? I think not. When I met up with Fabian last week, he mentioned the same thing: the constant thinking about crime just does not happen. While there are certain security measures, they are less visible and certainly a lot less intrusive. I am yet to find a house featuring high walls or electric fences; and even electric gates seem to be non existent. But I did see a Group4 Securicor van some weeks ago ... so they must have some business :P

Ka De We

My Lonely Planet guidebook describes Ka De We as the German equivalent of Harrods. At 7 storeys, it certainly matches the size of Harrods, but it does not really have the exclusivity. In reality, it is more like s super version of SA's Woolworths. The first level was more exclusive, featuring mini stores of the luxury brands like Armani and Cartier, but for the remainder, of the store, it was less so.

For me only two things stood out. On the electronics and lifestyle section (level 5) there was a large selection dedicated to model cars, trains and planes. Well, don't know much about the cars and the planes, but the trains section has convinced me that I really need to build myself my own one ... although I can also see that it will take a significant amount of money as well as time to assemble.

But the highlight is really the 6th level - the gourmet floor - reputedly having a spread over the size of two football fields. And quite a large portion being chocolate. It is simply an astounding selection of food and drinks, and mini restaurants that make the food in front of you.

The Reichstag

The Reichstag is THE symbol of German unity, and in fact the rebuilding (after being bombed to smithereens in WW2) of the Reichstag to be the seat of a future German united government even before the wall was even started! It is also a symbol of a new wave of architecture, comprising of mainly glass, that has taken hold in Berlin.



The famous glass dome, built by UK architect Sir Norman Foster acts like a viewing platform and also hosts a small display of photos illustrating the history of the building. It is interesting to know that there were quite a number of votes that rejected the incorporation of East Germany into West Germany for instance!





There are other buildings around the Reichstag, serving various governmental functions. The Democracy building (serving as the national archive IIRC) is possibly the most striking of them all.


The house of the German Chancellor is also quite interesting, and forms an H, if seen from above.

Arbeit Macht Frei

Or, loosely translated, "Work shall set you free" - quoted over the entrance of concentration camps. The Sachsenhausen concentration camp, was one of the first, and was built as a model concentration camp; and would end up influencing the structure and organisation of the Nazi concentration camps. Unlike other concentration camps, Sachsenhausen was built very close to major cities, and is in fact in the middle of the town of Oranienburg.

It is one thing to read about concentration camps, but seeing the hard reality on the ground is very sobering. First there is the scale: the large yards and the general size of the camp. Then there is the opposite: the small barracks, both the reality of the designed numbers and the actual numbers. And then there are all the features that made the brutality of the concentration camps famous: the medical wards and Station Z, where prisoners were executed, and then cremated.

But I also have a sense of grudging, I am not sure if this is the right word, wonder, for the design and implementation. The Nazi regime was simply very efficient, in both exploitation and in their brutality. For starters, the design of the camp: arranged in an equilateral triangle, with Tower A, the entrance to the camp in the center of one of the sides. The gate, also one of the highest points in the camp, had machine guns that could reach, theoretically, every point in the camp.

Concentration camps was not just about "purifying" the population. It was also about slavery and it was the prisoners from the camps who are largely responsible for fuelling the growth of the German economy, thus funding the Nazi war machine. And many of the companies that benefited from the concentration camp work force are still around, although I don't think that they still operate their old factories at Oranienburg.


Tower A


Former prisoner baraacks are marked, only a few reconstructed barracks remain


Inside a reconstructed barrack


A Neo-Nazi attack destroyed parts of the reconstructed barracks in the early 1990s


The East Germans built a memorial in the 1960s


The camp has an even darker history than some other concentration camps. The Soviets used this part of the camp (which is incidentally outside the triangle) as part of their own camp, mainly for being minor Nazi figures, but also for being political opponents etc. There is a mass grave behind the camp of prisoners who died while under soviet captivity.


The execution trench ... enough said





Station Z Memorial

Knut and Friends

Knut, for those not in the know, is a baby polar bear, and the highlight of the Berlin Zoo - one of the top zoos in the world. There are actually two zoos in Berlin, something that is not mentioned in most information guides to Berlin. I only found out about it, thanks to Fabian, when I met up with him on Thursday evening.


The city zoo is more compact, and features all the heavy weight attractions: lions, tigers, elephants, polar bears, brown bears, hippos, and many more. Some of the animals are quite good at pulling crowds, like the Panda, whose antics with the bamboo shoots drew large crowds.


A Springbok


Interesting backgrounds ... these are bisons


No idea what the architecture of the Giraffe pen has to do with the giraffes


The gorillas are also a famous feature of the zoo


The lionesses

The Tierpark (the other zoo) is spread over a massive area, and I did not actually go through the whole place because of its size. It probably has more animals (both zoos seem to have the main highlights). However, unlike the city zoo, which has one animal exhibition after another, the tierpark is a more spread out affair, with lots of trees and gardens between the various animal pens. It is a much nicer place to visit, IMO.


Both zoos have polar bears, the Tierpark photos just came out a lot better


A tiger pacing around


The irony of camels in a lush green field, surrounded by water


The park is littered with statues and fountains and places to have picnics etc. Some sculptures are a bit more interesting.


The park has a much larger collection of reptiles. The city zoo does have an aquarium, but it requires an additional ticket.

In the end, I would much rather go see them in the wild. While zoos do offer the luxury of seeing a larger variety of animals, it is just not the same as seeing them in the wild. They somehow seem to loose their magnificence. Which one to go to: if you want to see Knut, there is no option. Otherwise, go to the Tierpark.

Soviet War Memorials

The Soviets suffered one of the highest casualties in WW2, and they were one of the major forces in defeating the Nazis. In many parts of Germany, the soviets built war memorials to commemorate the fallen soldiers. I have been two such memorials in Berlin - the first near the Brandenburg Gate is quite simple, and to the point. It is flanked by two tanks, two artillery canons and features a small museum behind it.

There is much larger soviet war memorial in the former East Berlin, which can only be described in the superlative: grand, massive, majestic. It is a much more complex memorial, and is in fact the burial grounds for about 5000 soviet soldiers killed in the Battle of Berlin. I find it complex, not only because of it size, but also because of the artwork and design. First there is the kneeling woman, probably symbolising the prayers, then the kneeling soldiers at the symbolic gate, and the main feature of a heroic soldier carrying a child. This is a commemoration of fallen heroes, and nothing less. It is highly decorative and very intricately detailed, unlike many other soviet memorials I have seen, notably from the Statue park in Budapest.







But then there are the side panels on either side of the graves, which feature quotes from Stalin and images telling, it seems the story of the war, and how everyone in the country played their part. This is more rough, more common, and in stark contrast to the hero.

A Weekend in Hamburg

I was originally going to go to Hamburg 2 weeks ago, to meet up with a friend who would also be in Hamburg. Unfortunately, I could not get any accommodation (apparently it is the peak of the backpacker season). The train ticket was valid for a full month, so I planned better, and spent the past weekend in Hamburg.

I was quite lucky to make the train I wanted ... if it was on time, I would have been late by about 2 minutes. I was getting off the local train when the train was scheduled to leave. Luckily for me, the train was running late (by about 10 minutes) and I managed to catch it. The scenery was rather bland - miles of green farm land dotted with a lot of wind power stations. But not much else to see.


I stayed at the Instant Sleep Hostel, which is in a convenient location to move around Hamburg. Paraphrasing the Lonely Planet guide, it is a colourful hostel, but with very sparse facilities. I stayed in the hall of dreams, a 25 bed dorm! Have no complaints of the actual hostel really, although there was no such thing as an atmosphere. But then, I needed a bed to sleep in, and did not intend to hang out in the hostel.

Hamburg is really known for three things: its massive harbour, the airbus factory and Reeperbahn. Reeperbahn is the red light district, even larger than Amsterdam. It is reputedly a lot tamer (I need to investigate this), full of neon lights and at times, quite amusing (the reaction of people walking through, the ads etc).


As for the harbour, you only really understand the scale and size of it if you take a river cruise (or in my case, take the public ferries). The size of the ships is simply staggering, and the harbour is quite busy.


I did not see the Airbus factory, but it does seem that not everyone is impressed with the new plane.



Hamburg was an independent state for a long time, and it was quite a rich state at that. The city hall's impressive architecture is testament to this. I was there too early in the morning, and thus could not go inside.


St. Nikolai Church was one of the largest churches before WW2, and was then bombed. The spire is more or less all that remains, and is now an anti-war memorial. Again it was too early in the morning, so everything was closed. I did go up the tower of St. Michaelis Church though (it opens earlier than the others) and it offers a fantastic view of Hamburg, but is not as interesting.


For me, there were actually only two highlights on my trip: the Olympic Rolercoaster at the Hamburger Dom (a fun fair), and the Fish Market. I haven't been on many roller coasters, but The Olympic Roller Coaster has been by far the best. The 5 rings are complete loops and it is an amazing ride. The photo is from the tower of St. Michaelis; I did not actually take photos of either the Hamburger Dom or Reeperbahn.



The fish market is an open air market, and not much fish gets sold anymore. Even though I don't understand German, it is the antics of the stall keepers that is really impressive. Many put on a real show, in order to sell their wares, and there are some real bargains to be had; such as the full basket of fruit and vegetable (including the basket) for 10 Euros, to trees and plants for the garden.

Hamburg is also well known for its live music scene, especially for being the "birthplace" of the Beatles phenomenon. Just my luck: there are two music festivals starting this coming weekend, and there was one the weekend before. But this past weekend, there were only a few acts in bars and the like, and all the ones I found tended to be solo guitar acts, so I just kept looking (without much luck).

To be honest, there is nothing special about Hamburg. But if you do go, make sure you get up early on Sunday morning to go to the Fish Market.