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Quote of the Day

2007-07-08

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“We must check what the state can do to protect the freedom of its citizens also in the future.”
(CDU secretary general Ronald Pofalla according to the ZDF to the “Bild” about minister of the interior Schäuble’s new anti-terror plans; my translation)

Yes, he wanted to support Schäuble with this statement – wouldn’t it be better, then, to find another minister of the interior who is appearing less, well, paranoid (if you want to agree to the Linkspartei (“left party”) at least here, they don’t say much useful stuff anyway) and freedom-hostile?

Thus the actual Quote of the day:

“I used to assume it’s the minister of the interior’s job to protect the constitutional state. Now you could come to the conclusion that the constitutional state would have to be protected from the miníster of the interior.”
(Sebastian Edathy (SPD), leader of the Bundestag’s interior committee; my translation)

7, 8 or 14 Wonders of the World

2007-07-08

So, yesterday, 07/07/07 (unfortunately not on 07:07), the “New 7 Wonders”, which could be voted for on the internet, have been published – not officially acknowledged by the Unesco, not undisputed, but… well, never mind. So we now have (or don’t have), besides the ancient wonders of the “world” – limited to the Mediterranean area and the Middle East, which was the world known in ancient Greece –, which are

  1. Hanging Gardens of Babylon
  2. Colossus of Rhodes
  3. Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus
  4. Lighthouse of Alexandria
  5. Great Pyramid of Giza
  6. Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
  7. Statue of Zeus at Olympia

also (=> 14) – or only (=> 7)

  1. Great Wall of China
  2. Petra, Jordan
  3. Christ the Redeemer statue, Brazil
  4. Machu Picchu, Peru
  5. Chichén Itzá, Mexico
  6. Roman Colosseum, Italy
  7. Taj Mahal, India

– including, by the way, just two of my seven votes, and the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany didn’t make it, “of course”, was apparently on the unrewarding 8th place – and, so Zahi Hawass doesn’t get mad, also (=>8) the honor candidate, the “eternal wonder”:

the only ancient wonder that still stands.

Think of it what you want, ‘t is a nice thing, somehow, anyway…

Sudoku Level 3-5

2007-07-04

Su-Doku plus 6 Cover

…what does one expect there? Medium to very hard, right? After all, many books have four or five difficulty levels. Well, the small “Su-Doku plus” book (Nr.6, German, from french publisher Éditions Megastar) advertises “Level 3 to 5” on its cover (and contains also two puzzles of level “5-6” :???: ) – but apparently, they are using a scale up to 10 or so (no, nothing was specified there), for as far as I can tell after solving several of various levels, “3” = “very easy” (you can write it down in a few minutes – “1” must be size 6×6, then…) and “5” = “medium”, at most a few “medium to hard” (8 to 15 minutes, never needed to write alternatives with a pencil – including those that should be “extra difficult” as “2 sabres” should indicate).

Of course, the more practice you have, the faster you become – but the difference between the supposedly advertised difficulty and your expectations shouldn’t be that high…

Hope I’ll find something better among that plethora of offers (not buying that many, anyway)… at least this one had a handfull of other number puzzles, too…

The First is Second

2007-06-29

After the ZDF (the “Second German Television”) which started to broadcast their news shows and more in 16:9 format at the beginning of this week, the ARD (“The First”) wants to follow suit on Sunday – even though just with the “Tagesschau” (the main news show), the “Tagesthemen” (late news magazine) shall follow one by one. Nice :)

(Let me mention the poll on the right sidebar in this blog again…) (This poll has been closed in the mean time.)