offtopic - studivz - german facebook clone -

Well, sorry for those that are not students at German universities. This post probably is rather boring for you, but this thing seems to be running out of control and I want to post a few links to other weblogs on this topic.

Studivz basically is a clone of the American facebook, which was shown by some bloggers and doesn't really matter to me although it is sad they don't say it publicly.

I had an account some time ago but deleted it again when I decided that it is way too little privacy protection.

A good overview can be found in a blog called kasi-blog. It actually is written in English and should be worth reading for everybody.

And the next really interesting (German) entry is on www.blogbar.de. It basically is about a group of 700 homone driven men. They collect and share pictures and addresses of good looking women and stalk them. Some of the people working at the offices of studivz wanted to join the group when they received complaints about it...

Heise, the publisher of the really good german computer magazines has also published a few posts and the current discussion in the blogs can be seen via technorati.

Spiegel online now also has an article about the latest problems and the mechanism behind the so secure coding of the links can be seen on blogbar.
And information about another hack can be found on ymab.beta.

Those who still want to use the studivz might want to follow a few links in one of these blogs and/or read a bit about privacy.

Weekend

This weekend I joined a agronomy class on their trip to Uruapan, Michoacan. Hector, their professor had invited me. We started of at about 2 AM on Friday. The trip itself was not that comfortable since buses are not really designed for tall people.

In Uruapan we went to a National Park, well I'd rather call it a cool park with some little waterfalls connected by small rivers, nice plants and insects. There were some people who jumped into the deeper parts of the little rivers and then collected money from the tourists. We passed by loads of people selling all kinds of food or more or less traditional stuff.

Héctor, José and some Mexicans

After some two hours in the park it was already 2PM, so we went back to our place in the real National Park where we made dinner.

No mirror...
At 10 PM we went on to the feria of Uruapan where we stayed till about midnight and then headed back to bed. On the next morning we got up at something like 7:30 AM and packed our things. At about 10 AM we headed back to Colima with a small lunch stop from 11 AM to 12 in some nearby town.

Real Mexican meat

Meanwhile Annette went to Monte Grande (Fuego) with Nick and two Mexican master students. When they had to stop because a tree was blocking the road upwards Nick got out of the car which started rolling backwards (repairing the handbreak would cost about MX$1000 which is definitely too much, for the same reason we neither have a spare tire nor a jack). Since Annette did not know anyting about driving cars she did not know how to stop it and so they started going faster. When the car was about to enter a steep 200m long slope downwards Nick managed to get half way into the car and hit the break so the car stopped...

Temperatures

can change a lot in short time. In the office it is very helpful to wear a pullover because the air condition "fridge" is working very well and we don't have a lot of windows to compensate.
Outside it is pretty hot at noon, but temperatures have dropped considerably during the last days so it is ok during the day. In the evening a T-shirt is a bit warm when you try to sleep but at 6AM it is definitely time to be covered by the sleeping bag and that does not feel too warm. A few hours later you are back to summer normals. On the mountains it is pretty cold anyway but that should be normal at high altitudes.

Apart from that there is not a lot of news here. The code Nick gave me finally seems to work and I have figured out what it does in most of it. I might have a look at the end again.

Maybe I will go some National Park in Michoacan on friday, but that is far beyond the horizon of planning.

A few photos

Well I think it's about time for a few photos. At first my lovely room
and the view out of the window
and for those missing the sun a nice palm on the campus. Yes we have some wind today.

[WARNING - large image]

Earthquake! :)

Last night at about 1AM we hat an earthquake. The USGS says it was Mw 5.7 and 35 km (20 miles) SSW of Colima. Well since the others all put it on one of the fault zones offshore I would not put too much trust in these readings. It was enough to wake me up but not enough to get me out of my bed.
The resco SP Seismometers were at full reading (as usual...). Fresnal BB also seems to be at its limits for some of the quake (at least in the .gif-plots).
The GFZ Potsdam also has a location but both don't seem to have Mexican readings in their location.
The UNAM in D.F. rates it at M 5.2 and 20km of depth. At least the map seems to be for permanent display. An earlier Colima earthquake got its own page. Well I assume this one was a bit too small.
Anyway it was my first earthquake in Colima and probably won't be the last one. ;)
Maybe I'll try a bit around with the German Seismo data later to see if I can find it there. I have not found any downloadable Mexican data yet.

Nothing special

The last week was without of field trips and this also is the basic program for me for the next week. Martin, Kathrin and Michael have left for El Chichón (Chiapas) and will be there with our thermal Camera, a magnetometer and some things to measure CO2-Flux for the next two weeks. I stepped a bit bad on my ankle in El Playón so I decided on not going into the jungle as long as that is not completely healed out. The main objective of the Nevado trips is to collect thermal data which we can't get now, so there is no real use in going there.

So I spent some of my time trying to get some basically undocumented code running on my computer, which seems to work now. Next thing will be to figure out, what it does and then maybe adjust it to our use.
Then there is a circuit board for a weather station that does not react to connecting it to the battery so I will try to figure out what's going on there (it was Michael's job until he left, maybe it will fall back on him when he returns...).
We also have a infrasound board that has to be tested in cooperation with the electronics guy next door.
The chemistry lab still waits for tidying.
Collecting the papers I need for the migration office will take a bit longer since nobody seems to be in office or at least the people that have to work together seem to be taking turns in being out of office.

Yesterday I did some shopping. I got an electric hotplate for cooking coffee in the office which now lives in the chemistry lab, a small dictionary (MX$ 49), a machete with a cover and a stone to sharpen it, ink cartridges for one of my fountain pens (not really common in Mexico) and some credits for my cellular phone.

Well I'm still checking the sunglasses in the shops but they basically cost MX$ 60 independent of the brand and special model. ;-) Software has about the same price.

I just got two ciiv-t-shirts from Nick. That will expand the reach of one laundry run considerably. I did not take many here.

Visa - registration I

When you get a real visa for Mexico you have to register with the migra within a period of 30 workdays, so it is about time for me to get this done.
For registering one basically needs a proof of residence, some photos, a bank balance to show one has some money, MX$537 for the fees, and - when one has a student visa - a letter from the university.
The proof of residence consists of a letter from the owner of my house, a copy of her id-card and one or two water bills to show it's her house.
Some photos exactly means 3 from the front, 3 from the right side, format 4x4cm, black and white whith white background.
The fees can be paid at a bank whith a set of forms that has to be bought at a department store(?).
Oh, not to forget, there of course are some more forms to be filled.
Well to figure this out I first checked around a bit on the internet, where I found several versions especially of the photo listings (I never went for comparing the prices). Then I went to the exchange office at UCOL, where I was asked to bring a readable (typed) version of my application form, Nick's letter to the embassy in Berlin that can count as a letter of acceptance from UCOL and a copy of the letter from UHH to the embassy. They also told me that I would probably not need registration and that they will ask their lawyer on Friday when he comes back. To get the informations a bit faster Nick called the migra in Monzanillo where they said that my visa was set to the wrong type and I should have a FM3 according to Artículo 42, fracción VII instead of fracción III and they gave us the list of things I need, that I wrote on the start of this post.
Basic lesson so far: come as a tourist... ;)
Well I'll wait for the call from the exchange office on Friday and try to get all the papers ready by that time so I can go to Monzanillo to register as soon as I get the letter from the UCOL lawyer.

In the meantime there is a chemical lab to be tidied up, some seismic papers wait for reading, some undocumented matlab code waits for testing and I have to adjust my new room to my preferences.

If you have some spare time you might test a little game by the BBC.

El Playón I

On Friday evening Tonatiuh Dominguez R. (Observatorio Volcanologico) and Michael West (UAF) came by our office and I was asked if I wanted to join them on a trip to El Playón which is in the middle between Fuego and Nevado de Colima to do some maintainance on one of Michael's seismometers.
We left Colima on Saturday morning at about 6AM. After some hours of truck driving we arrived at the end of the dirt road and started hiking. The nature in this region is amazing. First we went quite a distance on rather horizontal terrain
and then down a steep track into the flat area of El Playón.

here we went down to El Playón

The name comes from the similarity to a beach (playa) because everything is very flat (considering you are at an altitude of 3000m right between two volcanoes but loads of lahars, pyroclastic flows and similar events seem to have done a good job in maintaing the area which is the caldera of a previous version of colima that erupted some 4000 years ago).

in the background you can see the walls of the old caldera

Passing by the 2004 lava flow

we went to the site of the seismometer, exchanged the hard disk and returned to the truck.and here we went up again

The landscape is amazing. There are hardly any humans passing by here (or at least that was my impression yesterday).

On our way back we managed to get an almost cloudless view on the volcano.

Nevado II

My second stay on Nevado was much more comfortable since I did not get the altitude sickness again. It might have been because of more sleep, food and coffee. My little coffee maker joined us on our trip to the observatory. It got burned a bit on the gas stove but made an excellent moka.

The weather was not so great but at least we got our first snow for this winter. It did not stay but it forced some people who were working a bit downhill to give up on camping for the night and sleep in the observatory. Let's say they were not equipped for these conditions.

Although the volcano was hidden behind the clouds most of the time we were able to observe two eruptions during the first day, one big one with a pyroclastic flow (at least something glowing went downhill) during the night and some massive degassing this morning.

My reaction on Martin waking me up for my nightshift at 2:30AM with his headlight on and a cup of coffee in the hands was considered between funny and dangerous for Martin but after some seconds I realized what was going on and was very glad about the excellent service.

The trip down in the truck was less fun than last time because it was not possible to stand and going backwards on bumpy roads with a pretty empty stomach can get me kind of seasick.

Guadalajara - Diá de Muertos

After returning from Nevado on Wednesday we went on to Guadalajara on Thursday here we spent the Dia de Muertos.
It was great to be in a real City again and at an altitude of 1500m the air is much drier and the temperatures are also a lot more comfortable. The downside is you need long clothing in the evenings and night.

After arriving by bus at nueva central we went into town in some bus that decided to take lots of small roads and stopped at some little shop to buy a coke.

In town we went to a hostel we had called on the phone and were told that our reservation was non existing and they were booked out. At least they called another hostel and reserved some beds for us there.
The surrounding area was kind of shady in some directions but the way to the city center was fine.

art animal hanging close to our hostel

our hostel

On the way back to town I found my first real espresso in the last two weeks that would not stay the last one. My mood suddenly became way better. ;)

Our coffee temple

What followed on Thursday was some sightseeing on the main square

Oaxaca proest on the main square

and then a trip to the feria (Oktoberfest), that was a bit like the Hamburg Dom just less food, more crap sellers and party places.
The taxi drivers once more tried to get abnormal prices but we managed to find cheaper alternatives. The bus driver again bought some coke on our way there but that was not that surprising any more.

On Friday we visited the main square again. The murals in the government building were impressive.

mural in the palacio dal gobierno

There were loads of churches built of obviously very interesting stonegeologists visiting a church

and a market where you could buy anything including copied products of all kinds, fruits, life animals, cow heads and any other of their parts and Christmas trees (plastic, like almost everything here).

Martin and some dead animal parts

The museum we visited later also had some murals by the same painter as the ones in the gov't building and a nice mirror installation close to the entrance.The mirrors in the museum

Annette and some street sellers near the museum

In the evening we went to a Dia de Muertos market.

On Saturday we went to some kind of natural/human history museum which was labeled as a can't miss but was rather a won't miss anything if you don't go there. Half of the exhibition was closed and so was their shop.

On our way back to the nueva central we stopped at Tlaquepaque and visited lots of art shops went to some restaurant where the traditional mariachi played their music.

Ruins of La Campana

Last Sunday we went to the ruins of La Campana which are slightly west of Colima.
They are nice but we got the impression that people abandoned the place because of too many biting insects.
We also saw an iguana of about 60cm length and a larger snake that jumped out of the hole where the iguana fled from us.

Pyramid with moon

Pyramid with volcano Fuego de Colima

Pyramid with Annette, Jemile and Michael

One of the many information plates.

http://www.cnca.gob.mx/cnca/inah/zonarq/campana.html

Nevado I

I'm omitting a bit of things that went on during the last week but I'll cover them later. Now it's time for our trip to Nevado de Colima.

We startet of on Tuesday at noon an took the bus to Cd. Guzmán where we spent the night at the Proteccion Civil.


On the next morning they took us up to their Observatory on Nevado de Colima (4000m a.s.l.). The trip in the back of the truck was a bit bumpy but we had a great driver so there were no problems. When Nevado came into sight we had a stop and a look at our first eruption of Fuego for the day.

When we arrived at the observatory we set up our equipment (well, OK, Jemile and Mike did most of the work since it was my first time on Nevado). Shortly afterwards there were clouds around Fuego and I got altitude sickness and was of no help any more for the rest of the day. At least I could take some pictures of our second eruption


and of the third one
which left a really nice cloud behind.
During the night we had another major eruption and a smaller one. Another smaller one was today in the morning.
The timestamps on the images are wrong because we now have winter time in Mexico and I didn't tell my camera.
On the way back we were lucky because our truck had bars around the back so it was possible to stand during the trip down which is much more fun.

And a quick look at the seismometer station Nevado that you can see on the RESCO-homepage.
That's about it for now. For tomorrow we are planning to go to Guadalajara to see the dia de muertos.
I'll try to add more information about the trip when we are back.