You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you might find
You get what you need

Does anyone have experience with repairing a punctured tire?

Click here to view the embedded video.

from crowdflow

In order to reflect political positions more accurately, I devised a two dimensional scheme. Through many discussions and arguments with friends and colleagues, it matured over time. The results are explained in the following diagram:

original file in SVG format

(added 2011-01-15)

Instead of a single dimension from left to right, this scheme uses the two dimensions:

• The balance between needs and abilities
• The balance between state and the individual

With this diagram I want to stimulate a discussion about the placement of different parties or other organisation. I positioned the major German parties based on my intuitive estimate. For reference I included the two leading US parties as well.  I do not claim that this is a correct or final expression of the current situation.

I would be very happy to see a healthy discussion around this proposal and if you want to contribute, just write a quick comment. You can also use the editable SVG file (linked below the diagram) to visualise your own ideas.

Greetings
Tim

Updates based on the comments below:

(2011-01-15)

Let me clarify the two original dimensions:

• Needs and abilities is based on the question
  “What a person deserves is based on what the person needs. Or: It is based on what the person can achieve with its abilities.”.
• State and individual is based on the question
  “Can each person apply its own solution to a subjective issue or does the state collectively define issues and solutions?”

Regarding the reappearing question of additional dimensions: In my first thoughts I included more dimensions, but dropped most of them in favour of making it easier to grasp and printable. In order to accommodate more dimensions on a two dimensional presentation, I added a parallel coordinates plot above which additionally includes the dimensions:

• Balance of centralisation and decentralisation
  “Should a solution be implemented on the lowest possible level (subsidiarity) or should a central government implement global solutions?”
• Balance of xenophobia and xenophilia
  A xenophile statement would be: “It doesn’t matter where somebody is from as long as he pays his taxes.”. A xenophob statement is: “National workers first!”
• Long term and short term orientation
  This is closely related to sustainability; Does a party focus on short term gains or does it take future effects into account? What is the time frame a party uses to evaluate their decisions? Just a few months or a couple of generations?

According to Melly’s comment, I positioned the green party a bit closer to the centre on the needs/abilities axis to reflect the even balance. Based on Nightwolf’s comment, I added the German Pirates Party.

Especially regarding the pirates, there is still a high level of uncertainty, but I guess their future tendency will be more towards the state and the needs. This highlights another aspect, currently neglected by the diagrams: uncertainty distributions. As hardly anything in life is 100% certain, especially not in politics, each rating in each dimension should also define the type and the spread of the uncertainty distribution.

As the information density rises with more dimensions and even uncertainty distributions added, I would welcome creative ideas on how to visualise both in a single diagram.

(2011-03-03)

Wikipedia before you think? Certainly not!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_spectrum

Question everything. – Why?
Tim

Around new years eve a friend of mine from study times organised a skiing/boarding trip to Sölden in the Austrian Alps. With sunny but cold weather and a great choice nice slopes, we we could really enjoy the beauty of that region. Though a slight cold kept my from snowboarding for two days, I quite enjoyed those times as well, relaxing with a good book to read. (Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami)

So far for now, I wish everyone a great year 2009!
Cheers
Tim

The next day we enjoyed the beuatiful weather in and around the pool, just relaxing and talking, playing some garden games (Boule, Beachball, Water-Volleyball, …) from time to time. We even witnessed a partial lunar eclipse that night!

After I spent the last few years in Germany without a car, I recently decided (with the push of my parents) to get me a used car. The decision which car to buy was rather easy, as I quite liked the Toyota Yaris which the ADAC (German Car Club) rated best in its class regarding runnig costs. (fuel consumption, maintenance, etc.) After just one week of browsing the offers I can now introduce you to Zaphod, sticking to my previous namespace, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Happy new year everyone!
Tim

The panoramas were created using hugin, a really nice tool for mostly automatic panorama stitching.

Local Culture

I made it home well, right in time for quite a few late summer / autumn festivals. The first and biggest was the traditional Wasen, a few weeks later I visited the Fellbacher Herbst for the first time. A pretty nice wine festival in the heart of, you guessed it, Fellbach with live music and many booths selling local wine and food. The last local festival in that row was the Krautfest, a festival around Filderkraut, which is typical for the Filder region and only produced here.

Good old Friends

Two weeks after I returned back home some good friends from highschool times and I went to Switzerland. The first day and evening we spent in Basel, joining with one of our friends who had worked there for his studies. After we finally decided on a restaurant I had a really nice wild boar roast which I won’t forget for quite a while.
The second day we drove to Luzern and started hiking up the Pilatus with fog all around us, one could barely see 50m. Overall the elevation difference would have been 1600m in one day, but in my corrent condition I gave up at about 1000m and took the cable car to the top. There we had a reservation for the hotel and enjoyed a relaxed evening (the others were totally tired as the last 600m were the toughest part).
Sunday the fog had cleared and the view was really marvellous. After a brief sunbath we took the cable car back to the lower station where we had parked the car and spend the rest of the day browsing around the inner city of Luzern.

The Studymates

The last weekend of October my group of best friends from the aerospace studies in Stuttgart gathered in Hamburg. The first day had a bar crawl through the Schanzenviertel and along the Reeperbahn.
After everyone had recovered from the night before, we went down to the pier (Landungsbrücken) and took a boat trip around the warehouse district (Speicherstadt) and the harbour. After that we just walked around downtown a bit and found a really nice and small mexican restaurant where we managed to get a table for the nine of us. After a good meal and some Tequila we retreated to Oli’s place where most of us stayed and had a rather calm last evening.

My Grandma’s 88th Birthday

As we planned the gathering in Hamburg quite a bit ahead, I could arrange that it would be the same weekend as my grandmother’s 88th birthday. So Sunday I got up a bit earlier, took the bus to the main station to get a few fresh flowers and visited her. It is truely amazing how clear her mind is, everytime I really enjoy talking to her. As usual I ate quite a bit more than I had planned, but I guess that’s a universal fact for grandmas all over the world!

The small glasses and the lack of authentic German food aside, this Fest was definitely a good experience.
Cheers, Tim.

After learning for the last few exams, Jörn and I took our bicycles for a tour to the far end of the airport, where landing airplanes pass just a few meters above ones head. It’s pretty amazing to listen to the sounds the wingtip vortexes create in the air. On the way back we headed to a beergarden and had some great local food, Maultaschen with potatosalad. With a nice cold beer the perfect refreshment after a tour of about 30 kilometers.

So long (and thanks for all the fish ),
Tim.

My friends and I started the Worldcup with a nice barbie at Oli’s place.

Especially the night out after the match Poland – Germany was amazing, around 70000 people partying in the city. The best thing is that there’s hardly any violence or aggression!

But I think after that night I’ll need a few calm days without these crowds!

Cheers,
Tim.

As I haven’t written much in a while, I’ll just give a brief overview of the last events.

As the new version of Ubuntu was released this month, I organised a small release party in Stuttgart. Though this was quite spontaneous, we ended up with a group of six Ubuntu interested people.

A few days later Kathi and I randomly got to watch a pre-worldcup soccer theatre performance in front of the new castle in Stuttgart. Especially the pyrotechnics were really impressive!

I also started working on my assignment, focussing on evolutionary optimisation of rule based designs. Ask me in person if you want a more detailed description of this.

So far for this update, cheers …
Tim.

We went bbqing at the Max Eyth See

and had a nice afternoon flying our model planes in Scharnhausen.

I even managed to get up and give my flat a spring-cleaning!

Just yesterday I went to an interesting concert in the “Laboratorium“, some modern blend of balkan/gypsy music. The band is called KAL and consists of mostly young musicians from the area around Belgrad.
After a few songs more and more people got up from their seats and started dancing around the tables … really great athmosphere in that small venue.

So far for this update, have a nice time!
Cheers, Tim.

A happy new year to everyone,
Tim.

Santa and the view on Heslach

a small puppet-theatre we discovered right around the corner

*cough *sneeze
Tim.

It still feels so unreal, on the one hand being at home makes me wonder if I ever left at all, while other stuff just confuses me, like cash refund on plasic bottles and the 1euro coin you have to put in the shopping trolley.
I already met some friends, and the nice people from the photo-shop I usually go to still remembered my name!
So far for now, I’ll have a big gathering with my friends on friday, and after that, there’s plenty to catch up with at uni.

Cheers, Tim.

Well, enought of the past, I’ll be boarding any moment.
On the road again, taking the long way home.

Thanks everybody for this nice time,
Tim.

Oh bright future!

Greets, Tim. (king of homeimprovement)

Greets and bye, Tim.

The last few weeks / months of university were quite busy. There was really few time to relax or even party! So I’m doing that right now. Last week i went to a concert of ‘Open Season’ and ‘The Peacocks’ at Stuttgart, after that I had a strange evening with a nice girl at the Club ‘Le Fonque’, the ‘evening’ ended at 800, returning home with the first connection. Last week, my parents, my grandma from Hamburg and me celebrated christmas, gathering, having lots of unhealthy food and even more fun.
Before christmas, my father and me exchanged the old gas tank of my Samurai, which took us three days! After christmas we started to prepare my new room in the house, by clearing it and painting the walls.
As soon as we built the tables and other stuff, I’ll move. After 2 years of cellar, I’m quite happy to see the sunlight again! (Don’t think my parents stuffed me in the cellar! I chose to do that and they told me 2 years ago I was crazy because of that, maybe I was!)

Right now I’m returning home from a concert of ‘HISS’ at the ‘Schlesinger Int.’. Was really great! Some kind of mixture between Rock and Polka with German lyrics.