Plitvice
Plan N
“Sehr geehrte Regierungsvertreterinnen und -vertreter,
sehr geehrte Delegierte,
sehr geehrte Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger, die ihre Sorge um unser aller Wohl nicht länger verbergen können…”
Krats Blick fixierte die Kameras in der Ferne.
“… sehr geehrte Mitmenschen,
unsere Erde glüht, sie qualmt, sie brennt. Wahrscheinlich wird sich niemand von Ihnen…”
Theodor N. Krat wies mit einer routiniert ausladenden Geste seiner linken Hand auf mehrere menschengefüllte Stuhl-Reihen direkt vor ihm. Frauen und Männer in leichten Hemden, einige davon auch hochgekrempelt, da die Sonne durch die Glasfront des Atriums stach, blickten nahezu regungslos von dort zu ihm auf. Die Kameraobjektive reflektieren aus unterschiedlichen Winkeln das Sonnenlicht zur Bühne. In der Ferne jammerte ein Kind auf, das jedoch sofort durch seine Eltern oder die kathedrale Stille des überfüllten Saales wieder verstummte. Zwischen den Stühlen war der schwarze raue Teppichboden kaum zu sehen, da viele Leute so auf dem Boden Platz genommen hatten, dass ihre Knie, Hände und Rücken gegeneinander drückten. Krat nutzte den verbliebenen Schwung seiner Hand, um die bereits fest sitzende randlose Brille ein unmerkliches Stück tiefer auf sein Nasenbein zu drücken. Er blickte auf das platzsparend beschriebene Papier vor ihm, doch seine Augen lasen die abgedruckten Worte nicht. Er hob seinen Kopf und ließ seine stahlgrauen Augen durch seine Brillengläser über die erstarrte Menschenflut fahren. Vorsichtig schoben einige Personen im Saal ihr Gewicht von der einen auf die andere Seite mit der Folge, dass andere sich gezwungen sahen es ihnen gleich ihnen gleich zu tun. Eine so frühe Pause kam unerwartet.
Science Fiction Hall of Fame
1. Rose for Ecclesiastes – Roger Zelazny
A poet from Earth learns the Martian secrets, falls in love with a Martian woman, convinces the Martians to lose their fatalism and care about their future (just like in the Book of Ecclesiastes) but eventually has to learn that the woman he loves was just playing her part in a prophecy which he did not know about. The protagonist understands that he did not really believe his own arguments and only did it for the woman. Seeing his own hubris, he tries to kill himself, survives and returns to Earth.
2. The Little Black Bag – C. M. Kornbluth
A doctor’s bag travels from the future into our time. It is found by a former doctor with an alcohol problem and a woman of little means. The tools, needles and pills in the bag help both to cure patients of all kinds of diseases. Eventually, the doctor wants to hand over the bag to academics and the woman decides to kill him. Having murdered someone with the bag, the bag — along with the tools it contains — loses its wondrous capabilities. So the woman accidentally kills herself when she intends to demonstrate how harmless one of the bag’s scalpels is. Very well-written.
3. The Quest for Saint Aquin – Anthony Boucher
In a world where religions are prohibited, the secret pope asks Thomas to find the legendary miraculously never decaying corpse of Saint Aquin, hoping to win new followers. It turns out that Saint Aquin’s corpse does not decay because he has not been human. At first dismayed, Thomas realized that if a robot, with its perfect logic, believed in God, others can be convinced of God’s existence, too. The parallel to the historical Thomas Aquinas is obvious.
4. Microcosmic God – Theodore Sturgeon
A genius scientist grows a fast-living small species which eventually becomes highly civilized and can build anything the scientist asks them to. This comes in handy when the scientist needs to defend himself against the greedy interests of a banker.
5. Fondly Fahrenheit – Alfred Bester
Gripping thriller about a human and his highly valuable android who kills even though it is not supposed to be able to. At first the owner suspects that the android’s defect might be related to heat. Toward the end, however, it becomes clear that the human projects his wishes and thoughts onto the android. This also explain the often confusing change of perspective. The first-person narrator changes constantly — sometimes within one sentence.
6. Twilight – John Campbell
A gripping story without much dialogue about mankind in the 31st century who inhabits large parts of the universe but lost the one thing that made them great: curiosity. Surrounded by incredibly advanced machines people have forgotten how to use or build them, living in the twilight of their civilizations.
7. Mimsy Were the Borogoves – Lewis Padgett
What if toys from the future reached our times? The spouses Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore describe how a brother and a sibling reach through toys from the future another dimension/time.
8. Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
A simple-minded janitor takes part in an experiment which makes him highly intelligent. He realizes that his “friends” had ridiculed him for being dumb. Also his sudden intelligence alienates him from everyone else. When he discovers that he will lose his intelligence (just like the test mouse “Algernon”), he analyzes his own situation scientifically but finds that there is no hope. The protagonist documents his progress and decline in reports. The spelling and word choice reflects both.
9. The Roads Must Roll – Robert Heinlein
In a world where transport depends on fast moving conveyor belts the cast system of engineers and technicians is severely disturbed after the latter start a revolt which eventually fails.
10. First Contact – Murray Leinster
A sort of prisoners’ dilemma in space: Humans meet an alien species somewhere in space, both far from their homes. They make contact, want to learn from each other (the aliens for example communicate not through sound but shortwave transmission) but neither wants to reveal where their respective homes are in case the other species bears ill intentions. Both civilizations have the same idea to win the other over with extorsion. Eventually it is decided that both civilizations will return to their homes in the spaceship of the other.
11. Scanners Live in Vain – Cordwainer Smith
Due to “Great Pain of Space”, humans may only travel through space in artificial hibernation. Only habermans (surgically altered ex convicts who do not feel anything anymore) can control the ship. They are controlled by scanners who have undergone the same procedure voluntarily. The scanners disagree on how to deal with a scientist who has found a way to circumvent the Great Pain, rendering their prestigious role in society superfluous. Smith’s imagination regarding the setting is impressive.
12. Arena – Fredric Brown
Avoiding a bloody war between mankind and an alien species a third superior species picks two representatives and has them fight under unknown conditions against each other in an arena. The human wins.
13. Surface Tension – James Blish
On a mission to populate the universe, a crew crashes on a planet which consists mostly of water. Before they die they create a new human-like civilization which lives under water and is microscopic. Just like Moses, the crew provides them with plates which explain their origin. The water civilization who can breathe through their quills underwater build a “space ship” to travel from one pond to the next, beginning to realize how large the world(s) outside of their own home must be. A refreshing change of perspective.
14. Mars is Heaven! – Ray Bradburry
Martian trick a crew from Earth into believing that their long lost relatives live on Mars, gaining their trust before killing them.
15. The Weapon Shop – A. E. van Vogt
A stern follower of the Empress, the ruler of the solar system, is upset by a weapon shop set up in his town. It turns out that the weapon shop is part of a large resistance movement against the Empress, who is not as benign as many people think. Toward the end the former follower realizes his mistakes and quietly joins the resistance.
16. The Cold Equations – Tom Godwin
An officer has to kill a young woman who secretly joined him on a mission to provide important medicine to humans on a distant planet because there is not enough fuel for both.
17. Coming Attraction – Fritz Leiber
A noir story about a woman who asks a foreigner for help from an abusive lover. When he knocks down her boyfriend, he realizes that the woman has been enjoying to seduce him like others before but never intended to leaver her boyfriend whose abuse she craves.
18. The Country of the Kind – Damon Knight
In a world of kind people, one person lacking empathy wreaks havoc. To protect others from harm, he is consistently ostracized which leads him to desperately try to convince others to follow his destructive example.
19. The Nine Billion Names of God – Arthur Clarke
Using modern technology, Tibetan monks try to list all possible names of god which would bring the world to an end, according to their belief.
20. A Martian Odyssey – Stanley Weinbaum
Weinbaum’s take on a creature who thinks as well as a man, or better than a man, but not like a man: the friendly Tweel.
21. Nightfall – Isaac Asimov
What would happen if people could see the stars only once every thousand years because there are several suns in the sky? According to Asimov, the society would destroy itself every thousand years. The world is described with certain astronomical rigour but the dialogue and plot is at times not very convincing.
22. It’s a Good Life – Jermoe Bixby
Anthony has paranormal powers, including mind reading. During his birth he cut off his village from the rest of the world. Afraid of his powers, the remaining villagers try to please him and avoid conflict by not mentioning/thinking anything negative in his presence.
23. Huddling Places – Clifford Simak
An expert doctor on the Martian brain is asked to help a Martian friend. He is highly opposed to leave his idyll on Earth, decides to help a friend but misses the flight to Mars due to a misunderstanding.
24. That Only a Mother – Judith Merril
A mother is in denial about her child being born without any limbs due to radiation in World War III.
25. Born of a Man and Woman – Richard Matheson
A first-person short story about a misfit who is kept from the public eye and eventually rebels against their parents.
26. Helen O’Loy – Lester del Rey
A man falls in love with a roboter, who does not believe herself to be one anymore. They marry and grow old together.
Klassische Moderne
Der Begriff Klassische Moderne bezeichnet die Vielfalt heute noch als bahnbrechend angesehener avantgardistischer Stilrichtungen bis in die Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Maler wie beispielsweise Henri Matisse, André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Max Beckmann, Franz Marc, Paul Klee und Piet Mondrian sind ihre typischen Vertreter. In Russland bildet sich eine russische Moderne, zu der man – neben Literaten, Komponisten oder dem Ballett-Impresario Djagilew – auch Marc Chagall und Wassily Kandinsky rechnet. Die Moderne der Architektur umfasst einen Stilkomplex, zu denen Architekten wie Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Ernst May, Konrad Wachsmann oder Oscar Niemeyer gerechnet werden.
Colani und Baluschek
Luigi Colani (* 2. August 1928 in Berlin, gebürtig Lutz Colani; † 16. September 2019 in Karlsruhe) war ein deutscher Designer. Er bevorzugte runde, organische, biodynamische Formen.
Hans Baluschek (* 9. Mai 1870 in Breslau; † 28. September 1935 in Berlin) war ein deutscher Maler, Grafiker und Schriftsteller. Baluschek war ein Hauptvertreter des deutschen kritischen Realismus und stellte anklagend das Leben des Proletariats in Berlin dar.
Soulmates
The person that makes you feel the most you.
The person that makes you grow the most.
Phoney-baloney cacka shit.
You know I think life is all about timing.
“Billy spoke with you about our sex?!”
“Of course, he did. I’m his mother!”
Bubble boy
David Phillip Vetter (September 21, 1971 – February 22, 1984) was an American who was a prominent sufferer of severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a hereditary disease which dramatically weakens the immune system. Individuals born with SCID are abnormally susceptible to infections, and exposure to typically innocuous pathogens can be fatal. Vetter was referred to as “David, the bubble boy” by the media, as a reference to the complex containment system used as part of the management of his SCID.
Water, air, food, diapers and clothes were sterilized before entering the sterile chamber. Items were placed in a chamber filled with ethylene oxide gas for four hours at 60˚C, and then aerated for a period of one to seven days before being placed in the sterile chamber.
When Vetter was four years old, he discovered that he could poke holes in his bubble using a butterfly syringe that was left inside the chamber by mistake. At this point, the treatment team explained to him what germs were and how they affected his condition. As he grew older, he became aware of the world outside his chamber, and expressed an interest in participating in what he could see outside the windows of the hospital and via television.
In 1977, researchers from NASA used their experience with the fabrication of space suits to develop a special suit that would allow Vetter to get out of his bubble and walk in the outside world. The suit was connected to his bubble via a 2.5 m long cloth tube and although cumbersome, it allowed him to venture outside without serious risk of contamination. Vetter was initially resistant to the suit, and although he later became more comfortable wearing it, he used it only seven times. He outgrew the suit and never used the replacement one provided for him by NASA.
In his first years of life he lived mostly at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. As he grew older, he lived increasingly at home with his parents and older sister Katherine in Dobbin, Texas. He died in 1984, at the age of 12 from complications of a bone marrow transplant provided by his sister. His mother touched his skin for the first time only several hours before his death.
Fangschreckenkrebse
Die Fangschreckenkrebse (Stomatopoda) sind eine Ordnung der Höheren Krebse (Malacostraca). Ihren Namen verdanken sie ihren Fangwerkzeugen, die äußerlich denen von Fangschrecken (Gottesanbeterinnen) ähneln.
Oft lebt sie in lockeren Gruppen dicht mit Artgenossen zusammen. Die Tiere sind promisk, und Männchen paaren sich mit mehreren Weibchen. Manche leben paarweise monogam. Weibchen der Pseudosquilla ciliata sind sexuell aggressiv und erbetteln oft oder erzwingen sogar Kopulationen von Männchen.
Fangschreckenkrebse besitzen ein hoch entwickeltes Sehvermögen mit ungewöhnlich leistungsfähigen Komplexaugen. Einige Arten sind Dodekachromaten, das heißt sie besitzen zwölf Farbrezeptoren (Zapfen).
Bei ihrer Jagdweise unterscheidet man im Wesentlichen Speerer und Schmetterer. Einige Schmetterer können besonders heftige Schläge ausführen. Gelegentlich sollen Treffer beim unvorsichtigen Ergreifen von Schmetterern die spätere Amputation eines Fingers notwendig gemacht haben.[*]
Tetrachromasie
Ein Tetrachromat (τετρα- tetra- „vier“ und χρῶμα chrōma „Farbe“) ist ein Lebewesen, welches vier Arten von Farbrezeptoren zum Sehen benutzt. Dazu zählen zum Beispiele Wellensittiche.
Es gibt Wirbeltiere mit einem, zwei, drei, vier oder fünf Zapfentypen. Zapfen sind farbempfindliche Fotorezeptoren. Der Mensch hat meistens in der lichtempfindlichen Netzhaut des Auges drei verschiedene Arten von Zapfen, und wird deshalb als Trichromat bezeichnet.
Die Absorptionsmaxima der Zapfen liegen bei etwa 455 nm, 535 nm und 563 nm liegen und entsprechen den Farben Blauviolett, Smaragdgrün und Gelbgrün. Ungefähr 12% aller Frauen besitzen einen weiteren Zapfen. Allerdings können nur wenige dies zur genaueren Farbunterscheidung nutzen.
Daniell-Element
Wenn man Zink in Kupfer-Sulfat auflöst, erhält man Kupfer und Zink-Sulfat:
Zn_{(s)} + {Cu^{2+}SO_4^{2-}}_{(aq)} \rightharpoonup Cu_{(s)} + {Zn^{2+}SO_4^{2-}}_{(aq)}
Das heißt das unedlere Zink gibt seine Elektronen an das edlere Kupfer ab. Man kann diese Redox-Reaktion (Reduktion-Oxidations) entsprechend aufteilen:
\begin{aligned}
&Zn_{(s)}& &\rightharpoonup& &Zn^{2+}_{(aq)}+ 2 \ e^{-}& &\text{(Ox.)}\\
&Cu^{2+}_{(aq)}+ 2 \ e^{-}& &\rightharpoonup& &Cu_{(s)}& &\text{(Red.)}
\end{aligned}
Die Idee des Daniell-Elements ist es beide Prozesse räumlich zu trennen und mit der Elektronen-Abgabe gezielt Strom zu erzeugen.
In der linken Halb-Zelle (der Anode) befindet sich ein Zink-Stab in Zink-Sulfat. Das Zink-Sulfat ist in Wasser gelöst (aq), das heißt die positiven Zink-Ionen und die negativen Sulfat-Ionen bewegen sich frei im Wasser. Aus dem Zink lösen sich nun Zink-Ionen und Elektronen werden frei gesetzt. An der nun negativ geladenen Anode bildet sich eine Grenzschicht von Elektronen und Zink-Ionen.
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In der rechten Halb-Zelle (der Kathode) befindet sich Kupfer in Kupfer-Sulfat. Auch hier lösen sich einige Kupfer-Ionen aus dem Kupfer-Stab. Jedoch wesentlich langsamer als dies beim Zink der Fall ist. Verbindet man nun beide Halb-Zellen mit einem elektrischen Leiter so können wie bei der eingangs beschriebenen Reaktion die aus dem Zink gelösten Elektronen zur Kathode wandern, da die positiven Kupfer-Ionen stärker an den Elektronen zerren als die ebenfalls positiven Zink-Ionen. In der Kathode verbinden sich die Elektronen mit den Kupfer-Ionen zu reinem/soliden Kupfer (s).
Theoretisch würde sich nun ein neues Gleichgewicht einstellen. Irgendwann sind links so viele Zink-Ionen frei gesetzt, dass sie gleichermaßen stark an den Elektronen zerren wie die Kupfer-Ionen rechts. Dadurch dass sich nun festes Kupfer in der Kathode bildet, erhöht sich die Konzentration der negativen Sulfat-Ionen. Durch ein semi-permeables Diaphragma diffundieren diese nun jedoch von der rechten Halbzelle zur linken und neutralisieren dort einige Zink-Ionen, so dass das Kupfer weiter neue Elektronen durch den elektrischen Leiter zieht.
Somit ist der elektrische Stromkreislauf geschlossen. Chemische Energie wird in elektrische umgewandelt. Zink wird verbraucht und Kupfer erzeugt.