If science was a metro map it would look like this

Crispian Jago does a lot of awesome things. This times he used the visual metapher of a metro map and merged with the history of science.

Now you can throw away the mindmaps you have generated and use this. Next stop: Louis Pasteur

How do people write their blog posts?

I was sitting in front of the screen, thinking what kind of tools people use to write their blog posts. But I never thought that the question is not that simple.
Obviously the following things are not part of the job:

• Collecting ideas for posts. The ideas come and they go again if you do not catch them and write them down or make a voice memo, picture or something similar. Try to catch even the smallest idea. Where there is only a grain of sand there might be more some time in the future.
• Collecting all kinds of illustrative material for your posts. Most of the time you will have to create this from scratch...
• Drinking tea and staring at the wall. This might be part of the thinking process, but it is not action oriented.
• Planning. A plan is good, but planning is not writing.

I stop here. I think I made my point. I still have no clue, how other people do it. Most of the time I simply write straight ahead and save my writings as a draft directly in the webinterface, sometimes I use a distractionfree editor to write down the main passages and do the finishing in the editor and on some rare occasions I use a mobile software (mostly in connection with a picture). I also discovered a tendency to use the voice memo function on my phone as well as pen and paper to take notes. Is it part of the process to start the writing in your brain and get it out somehow? This might be worth a blog post later but for now let's stick to the writing process.

Tell me: How do you write your texts? What tools do you use? Thank you for any comment.

The geekiest Pin Numbers [via volldost]

Volldost

Why I decided to keep the name of this blog - how to remember Pi

Thank you  for your mails and the comment ;-)
I admit that I thought of changing to tumblr. There are no more rememberable subdomains left at blogspot. But  then I decided to keep the name as it is. Why?
My thought was the following:

1. When I have a genius idea I can switch. Then it will be a full domain.
2. People come to my blog because they search in google, click a link or simply because they follow my tweets.
3. People come again because they follow my tweets, have a bookmark or simply remember Pi.

You want know how to remember the first few digits of Pi?

The Greek letter pi (source: Wikipedia)

3,1415 is sufficient for most calculations Pi, starts with three (rhyme) and continues with some addititions:

3 + 1 = 4 ...+ 1 = 5 and now you can remember my blog stst31415.blogspot.com

Do you want one digit more? Just add up the digits. The last sum which is below ten is the next digit 

3+1+4+1 = 9 the next one would be to "start again": 3

Try this at home.

_____

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

Weather widgets try to make me crazy

Did you realize how many weather forecast widgets exist? On Android it is loads of these things. Some are better some make me shiver. Why? No, not because it is cold.

1. The metric system should always be supported. I could make a survey, but I think none of my coworkers could tell me if water starts boiling at x Fahrenheit. The answer always would be How many Fahrenheit are 100° Celsius?
2. The use of a weather widget would be to show the forecast, telling the temperature of today in order to give you a starting point. Is it getting colder or warmer.
3. Sometimes the font is not readable and the color of the font cannot be switched. So some widgets are useless on dark backgrounds (or on light ones).

I did not like the weather widget preinstalled to my HTC. So I searched the market. Two apps got into the finals: Snowstorm and weather forecast widget. I installed both and fell in love with weather forecast widget. Now I have the weather forecast for the next three days on my home screen.

If only the data in the weather forecast were always right. But this is another story.