Lieber Schatz! That's how Albert Einstein wrote to his cousin, the woman he was divorcing his wife for in 1914. ("Es ist für einen ehrlichen Menschen nicht möglich, eine Frau zu lieben und mit einer andern verheiratet zu sein." Collected Papers of Einstein, Princeton University Press, 1998)

To be a student now. Still a bit flabbergasted by the Van Eyck initiative and here's the next one, lovingly offered by the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University (AEA) and the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech (EPP): the Einstein Project. You will not only find all Einstein's writings (scientific ànd other handwritten stuff like diaries, letters and the like) but also photo's, audio etc. We're talking more than 80.000 items from the Albert Einstein Archives being uploaded for consultation on a website. True, they have just started two days ago with 2000 items but the work will continue all through this year. Nothing else to do but check once in a while, right? I wouldn't mind reading a lovenote by Mr. E=mc2 or a shopping list instead of a dissertation I'm not going to understand anyway. Or are we stripping dear Albert from his godlike status if we do? I don't think so.

The Luxemburg Flu

Isn't this a tad strange? We have this website monitoring the numbers of Belgians infected by the Mexican flu. I personally still don't know too many people actually being sick. A lot of them, myself included, have a cough or a slight cold ... and even those with a flu have the flu (the regular flu or the other one: there is not much difference except when you belong to a risk group. Every GP will tell you that).

But look at this map!

Wouldn't you expect the major cities to be critical in spreading this disease? Where people are packed together in schools, office buildings, on trams and busses, on the subway and on the train?

But no, it is our lovely, green, very lightly populated provice of Luxemburg that carries the crown. Or did they switch the legends and the colours? Are we talking Luxemburg Flu now? Not even enough pigs in Luxemburg to consider a semantic mashup ...

am I good to go?

That's how they named a website designed for soldiers leaving the military. After spending a couple of years in, let's say, Iraq, going back to normal life has to be really scary if this is what is needed. The special website www.areyoug2g.com/has sections for soldiers, for families of soldiers, discharge date counters to post on websites and social networks, a support system to help you create some kind of planning and stick to it, help to find a job, ... It would be easy to be cynical about this but I actually think this is relevant stuff and very well done.

Never ending projects

You know that feeling? You build a website, you go through different phazes of stress, crisis, war rooms, ... you finally accomplish something quite OK and then you need to wait weeks before you can go live. Dangerous because in the meantime people want changes, try to alter the scope, suggest new functionalities ... very hard keeping everybody happy and still saying no. There's a pressconference tomorrow .... unless it gets canceled for the 4th time I will finally have a go and we can let this baby go.