The one and only song of this (football) summer!

Thanks for all the positive feedback. I took an instant ramen bowl, removed the (packaged) noodles and powders and cut a hole in the back. The hole is reinforced with rubber foam to stabilize the flash unit in the bowl. The side of the dish is covered in gaffer tape to keep all the light trapped :). The front is…

Ramen cups can be made into cheap beauty dishes :)

I don't know how different the Kinect itself is, apart from the branding, but this is the adapter.

Just a reminder what it can do.

I preordered the Kinect 2 yesterday :). Really looking forward what I can do with it. I didn't have a Kinect 1 so it's a entirely new thing for me. The SDK 2 pricing is still unclear for me. I know it's free while in beta, and the SDK1 was free as well, but I have not heard anything about the v2's pricing. MS keeps…

Oh, Club-Mate – my one true vice. Got hooked in 2005 and there's always a crate in my apartment (although finding a dealer was quite hard in the beginning). It's less sweet than normal soft drinks (or any energy drink for that matter), but very refreshing when you get used to the uncommon taste. While it was very hard…

Germany has set a plan how its transition should be handled in 2002. (http://www.bmub.bund.de/themen/strateg… in German; 10% of all energy and 30% of electric power by 2020 created by renewables). The newest version (2012) even set higher targets: 35% of all electric power by 2020, and 80% by 2050.

The method was too successful, that is the problem. The government does not install huge amounts of renewable power plants itself but guarantees operators (a lot of them houseowners and farmers) a price for their power as well as prioritization in the power grid. Traditional power plants only deliver if the renewables…

The phase out started in early 2000s under the Red-Green government, combined with a law to heavily promote renewables. When Merkel came into power she initially slowed down the phase out (but did not stop it) but after Fukushima the government reverted back to original timetable, and even shut down some older or…

I'm sorry bit this is much more complicated than just a mere backtracking. Germany is constantly reaching for more renewables in its energy mix. I think right now it is around 20-25% percent and growing. This is for a country that still has an industrial base, is not very sunny, windy or could harness hydroelectric or…

Germany didn't have a minimum wage in 2011 :-/

The answer to "Why is Google buying all these robotics companies?".

No, the Stasi and the NSA should not be equated. The NSA is the intelligence agency of a fully democratic country, albeit its supervision may be imperfect. The Stasi was an apparatus to control the population, to show "who's boss" and keep a country under way that could easily have suffocated under its various…

The system of oppression in East Germany (a self-proclaimed "democratic" state) crept deep into the lives of the citizens. The Wall was erected to halt any brain drain, and if you dared to approach it there was a Schießbefehl (shooting order). The Stasi employed many so called informal agents (IMs) that were…

Well, they might not access this offline password database (except the theft was targeted). My point about a physical database is not mainly protection against third party access but having even little known account information copied in case of emergency.

Stolen laptops or in case of a break-in into your house.

I disagree. Well, writing down all the passwords in a book called passwords may be counterproductive, but having all those dozens of accounts with different usernames, passwords and email addresses tied to them may be a life-saver (when stored safely). Sure, you can rely on a password safe (online and/or offline) but…

I don't know if you know the medium but there are already movies similar like that. They are called FullDome and usually shown in planetariums or portable domes. The projections is 360°x180° (a halfdome). Some videos have a fixed point of interest and rarely use the whole dome while some use the space and the…

The Hipster archetype is alive in Germany as well. Especially in Berlin. The term even recently spread to "Fußball-Hipster" (football/soccer hipsters), people that dress up in vintage clothing from traditional powerhouses including patches from old games. Then they talk about old stats, cult players and football…