THE PULP OF BIESTMILCH

Archive for the ‘Notes & Remarks’


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Impressions from Fuerteventura adjacent to our main targets

On this canary island our partner Hannes has organized a triathlon training camp. Beside the fact of shooting our athletes, we are promoting biestmilch with a booth at Hannes’ base on Fuerteventura. On Tuesday Fritz, my dear DOP, and myself left for Fuerteventura to collect some footage of our biest athletes, who are currently polishing their bodies for the season. Whenever I am on the road like this I try to find a few short seconds to get off the track and see something else of the place. I have to admit this time these moments were extremely rare. We had only 3 days.

Heavy gusty winds turned the Atlantic into a wild creature

Heavy gusty winds turned the Atlantic into a wild creature

Peaceful coexistence. The dog has got some features of my borders

Peaceful coexistence. The dog has got some features of my borders

Typical local restaurant, our refuge on the island

Typical local restaurant, our refuge on the island

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Steve Jobs talking in front of Stanford University graduates

I just found this talk when I was tiredly stumbling through my newsreader – this procedure belongs to my everyday morning routines. I thouhgt in somehow this speech suits the New Year, it is the talk of a visionary and visions are always part of new beginnings, aren’t they?
Steve Jobs is a person who definitely has got something to say, he is as much adored as disliked, not unusual for people with extraordinary talents. I myself am a member of the Apple community ever since I got in contact with computers. This was in the very beginning of the ninties. All efforts of the PC to beguile me failed. But working with a Mac changed everything, working with it became almost an addiction – after having listened to Jobs I can envision in somehow why this is the case.

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Honu – the turtle and we are waiting

… to go to sleep and get up early. It is race morning very soon.

Turtle waiting by the pier, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Turtle waiting by the pier, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

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Busy pigeons

pigeon1pigeon2

For my friend Isabel

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The Vitamin Bs – does substitution make sense … ?

Today when we were having breakfast with Chris and the guys at Jamba Juice the topic of vitamin B was raised. Therefore I thought of a short summary about these essential water-soluble vitamins that play important roles in cell metabolism. We know 8 different vitamin Bs. Their roles are manifold. Various enzyme activities depend on vitamin B complex. It influences growth, development, metabolism, the functioning of cells, their regeneration and their turn-over. Immune cells and nerve cells need vitamin B complex.

B vitamins are particularly concentrated in meat, and other good sources are potatoes, bananas, lentils, chili peppers, beans, liver oil, liver, turkey, tuna, yeast, brewer’s yeast, and molasses. Marmite and Vegemite are famous for being one of the world’s richest known sources of vitamin B. As might be expected, due to its high content of brewer’s yeast, non-filtered beer is a source of B vitamins.

Just about everyone in the Western worls already gets all of the B vitamins they could possibly need in their diets… Extra B vitamins are generally just flushed out of the system—although everyone’s limit of absorption is different in regards to B complex vitamins and no-one knows how much is needed on an individual basis of these vitamins…

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Do we need evidence and a cause-effect logic for making decision?

When do we act, how do we act, and how do we justify our decision in a realm of uncertainty and risks? I just read an essay about John Snow and the Cholera epidemic in London 1854. This was yet a time where bacteria were not yet discovered, where a manifold of theories circulated to explain disasters of this kind.

Snow’s observations, his assessment of the situation, his method of interpreting his observations / data made a cause-effect relation transparent that lead the way for an intervention policy stopping the epidemic. With his investigative approach Snow was able to submit all the necessary data that were convincing enough for policy-makers to act.

Snow's map of observations

Snow's map of observations

Source: www.personal.psu.edu

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Questioning is my essential working method – not taking anything for granted

Today was not a too good day. I was not efficient at all. Days of this kind are days of doubts, necessary days, days of renewal as one recognizes only later in the process. I started to read, this is always a process of refueling for me, if the books don’t turn out to be stupid, but stirring up. It is like pressing the reset button, and that’s good too. Step beyond the daily rush and routine, and start questioning.

Why the heck, did she put this photo in this place

Why the heck, did she put this photo in this place*

This is how I came across a paragraph on Seth Godin’s blog. I donate these lines to all my young co-workers who seem to be so straight on track, that I envy them sometimes.
“Some people read (business) books looking for confirmation. I read them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap, easy and ineffective. Restlessness and the scientific method, on the other hand, create a culture of testing and inquiry that can’t help but push you forward.”

by Seth Godin

*Photo by Fritz Oelberg

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Two different eyes seeing an influenza virus

Two views on a virus.
In biology it is problematic if you draw an organism like being a part of your kid’s toy box like the first image below, no activity state visible, no change in time. The other one shows you a beautiful pattern. It is the electron microscope that is giving you this image. You have to have the eye of a virologist to be able to understand either. Or you need a long explanation allowing you to enter the world of an expert in biology. Then you may be in their world and understand, but that does not necessarily mean that you ended up at the essence of form and function of a virus. It still may be all very different as knowledge and perspectives drift, shift or change.

Influenza Virus

Model of an influenza virus seen by a virologist with drawing skills

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Viruses seen through the of a electron microscope

Viruses seen through the lens of an electron microscope

credits: all American patriots