Swedish midsummer flora

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Today was the Swedish midsummer eve – and I used the free day for a bicycle ride. Hunting geo-caches also brought me in contact with nature. Paris quadrifolia is quite common in the forests around Uppsala. Sometimes you find Paris quadrifolia (four-leaved) with five leaves!

Brave New World

MS Outlook Web App - a survival mechanism for Outlook/Exchange refuseniks.

Today my employer, Uppsala University, will migrate our email system from an open-source and Unix based one to Exchange Server. At the same time we are all encouraged to migrate ourselves to using Exchange/Outlook for the sake of the benefits. Well, I will not, ever… Some working group in the administration has decided that it… Continue reading Brave New World

That’s bright!

IKEA LEDARE lamp with 16.5 W and 1000 lm.

Transatlantic recently asked about a new IKEA LED lamp, the LEDARE with 1000 lm. It comes as a quite big globe (diameter 95 mm) with an E27 socket, an electrical power rating of 16.5 W and is supposed to be dimable! Transatlantic commented on the high quality of the warm-white light output and wondered if… Continue reading That’s bright!

(Deutsch) Schüßlerst Du schon?

This article is about German tv advertisements for sugar pills according to the teachings of Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler. Since this is a German phenomenon and superstition I will not translate it to English.

Optical illusions

Which direction are the black and white balls moving?

On National Geographic there is right now a science show called Brain Games. Even though a lot of the contents is not new, there was one optical illusion which really fascinated me: Look at the full image, look at the red circle, look at the yellow circle… (image found at Mighty Optical Illusions)

AVR ISP breadboard adapter

My very own AVR ISP adapter on a breadboard.

Breadboards are great! I mean the solderless breadboard type which you can get everywhere now for almost no money. I use them all the time to prototype electronics circuits and have been forcing my students to do the same. Most of my current projects also involve AVR microcontrollers which support an in-system programming. For this… Continue reading AVR ISP breadboard adapter