Die Vermessung der Welt

If you come across that book, read it. There is no paperback version, but that doesn't matter, it is that good, and seriously worth the money.

 

It's a half-fictional, half factual biography of two great men, Gauß and Alexander von Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt	Carl Friedrich Gauß
14. September 1769 - 6. Mai 1859	30. April 1777- 23. Februar 1855

See? Who wouldn't want to know more about these two very nice looking gentlemen? (I want Humboldt's tie.)

It's a sketchy biography of both and gives the reader glimpses of their lives, works and oddities. Both men are of course geniuses, and they were both, from a very early age, taught by the best people of their age and met most of their most illustrious contemporaries. The frame story has a less-than enthusiastic Gauß travel to Berlin to the German Congress of Natural Scientists (Deutschen Naturforscherkongress) with his son Eugen, following Humboldt's invitation, and the biographies of the two men are told in turns embedded in that frame story, before they get caught up in a student's revolt during the time of the Carlsbad decrees.
They're both failures as humans (at least in the book) and occupied with their works to the point of obsession, which is both hilarious and tragic at times.

Great, great read.

Spring in my room

I don't do plants. Every plant I ever had died within a few  months, because I either gave them too much or too little water. The only two plants that have survived this are two very trusted, resilient cacti which have been living in my room for years now. They just don't die. They are really not pretty, but somehow I never dared to throw them away or give them away because they are obviously alive. Not exactly thriving, as nothing does in my room, but they outlived a lot of cyclamens and other plants.

I barely ever look at them, and they don't ever change.
They're cacti. Cacti are really not that fascinating, and they never really change. Occasionally, they'd dry up and I'd have to water them, only to leave them alone for another few months.

This way, I did missed something I wouldn't have missed otherwise:

( OMG!! Cactus!! )