www.grundlos.org

This is the slogan of “Despair, Inc.” a company that specializes on demotivation. Funny idea you think, but they take the joke quite far. You can buy demoralizing desktop adornments or calendars. To put an example of a demoralizing slogan: “Ambition: A journey of a thousand miles ends sometimes very, very badly”, featured below the picture of bear catching a salmon. They’ve got lots and lots of those, all worth a laugh. Very funny is also “The book” sold in three different editions. It’s title “The Art of Demotivation”, the editions focus on hierarchy in companies. And each edition is made to keep unwanted eyes from knowing what this is all about. The manager edition features a “cloaking-device”:

“To help protect your investment and potentially your life, our Manager edition ships complete with the Undercover™, a built-in cloaking device. This secondary dust-jacket claims to house a non-existent book called Ethics, Integrity and Sacrifice in the Workplace. This will render the book virtually invisible to your employees, who have no interest in such subjects. “

The “Chairman-Edition” comes in a box with humidiy-indicator, is made from handmade-paper, hand-bound in goat-leather and printed the way Gutenberg invented printing… all of this for a little more than a 1000$… Crazy! I wonder who buys those?

Gerade hab ich einen sehr lustigen Hörbeitrag gefunden. Wenn ihr gerade 10min Zeit habt, hört doch mal rein. Der ist nämlich nicht nur lustig, sondern auch interessant…

Das singende, klingende Universum — Knorkator

Viel Spaß beim Hören.

Pandora offers an interesting service. You type in an artist or song you like and they create a radio station that plays music according to your taste. You can evaluate the songs in order to customize you personal radio, add other favorites or create up to a 100 other stations. Great idea in my opinion! Check it out!

Note: a little drawback is you have to register pretending you are a U.S.-resident. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a valid zip-code, though.

One month ago a Spanish court ruled a daring judgement: Downloading music for private use isn’t a crime. According to the sentence the accused had not committed any punishable offense, as he didn’t pursue any financial interests. Downloading music from the Internet for private use was common practise and socially accepted, so declaring this illegal would implicate criminalising millions of citizens without reason, stated judge Paz Aldecoa in Santander. For the interested ones: Here’s the link to the newspaper-article in Spanish.

Matthias noticed me of the Honda advertisement: “Impossible Dream”. I looked it up and stumbled across some interesting things. First off, it’s already been released last year. Second and most interestingly it has been re-broadcasted in England during the FIFA Soccer World Championship, slightly altered. You’ll see what I mean watching the movie clips below…

Impossible Dream — Original

Impossible Dream — for England

Please excuse the differing quality of the clips — that of course isn’t the difference I was talking about

For non-smokers like me it’s a disgust having someone nearby that’s smoking. It stinks, it’s filthy and apart from that pretty unhealthy. Good thing it’s being prohibited in more and more places — although Germany is pretty far behind and sadly less consequent than other countries. Still you happen to find people smoking in places where they shouldn’t, like for example here in Berlin the train stations. Ok, of course it’s annoying, but ever put yourself to think that people like these, forgetting completely they harm and molest bystanding people are basically sick and need help? You knew that 70 out of 100 people who are smoking wish they didn’t, but yet they continue? This might help treating them with a little more consideration when telling them to stop. Instead of yelling “Put it out. Now!” you might try: “I know it’s an almost uncontrollable urge to smoke now, and it feels kind of good for you… but, have you considered you might molest and endanger the health of non-smokers nearby?” For more arguments and insights in the dirty business of big cigarette industry you might try www.thetruth.com, which supplies apart from very interesting facts a lot of ideas how to spread this knowledge. Don’t miss their video of the “singing” cowboy. Quite shocking but very true, that (It’s a bit hidden on the original page, so I included a direct link but to another page).

The Arabic news company Aljazeera broadcasted a simple animated caricature depicting their version of the impacts on the islamic world caused by the pope’s much-discussed speech in Regensburg. It shows Benedict XVI shooting the doves of peace released by aged John Paul II. Benedict XVI cited in his speech a Byzantine emperor with the words “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. This had caused an uproar in the muslimic world. The original cartoon can be seen on their homepage and is titled “Era of the New Vatican”. How far this cartoon represents the generalized feelings in the muslim world is hard to say for me, but Aljazeera seems to my impression quite qualified to really do so.
In my opinion this speech demonstrates either a lack of diplomatic common sense or just plain bad behaviour. In Germany exists a proverb that states “One who sits in a house of glass shouldn’t start throwing stones”. The so called “Christianity” the pope represents has it’s own quite bloody history account of converting by the sword and this even amongst their own followers (just think about inquisition). Islamic conquerors meanwhile usually didn’t force people to convert — just have a little trip to the south of Spain to see the remains of the religion’s peaceful together under the reign of the Islamic rulers of Spain. It were the Catholic Kings that put an end to tolerance and drove the Moslems out of Spain by the point of the sword. Well, just my five cents to that. If you have an opinion just let it be heard in the comments section.

The Lancet has published in it’s ultimate issue (9540, Vol. 368) a trial that uncovers the profound unjustice in German medical hierarchy. 329 German doctors were asked to fill out a standartized quality of life survey (SF-36). In the results they found a strinking difference: Doctors low in the hirarchy scored on some scales up to 17 points below the population average (which is a lot!) while heads of departments exceeded average scores by 8! If you have a closer look at the illustration, you’ll see that this difference concerning quality of life is visible throughout the different scales of the survey. Well for many a deep-eyed resident who once again has to continue with the next shift after already having worked all night this will be old news — but it’s the first scientific approach to this issue I have seen up to now. The authors emphasize that they’re not contrary to hierarchical structures in hospitals as this guarantees a good work-flow. But if hirarchy lead to “negative working atmosphere” and “reduced health related quality of life” this would not be serving organisational needs, let alone employees’. I guess I do have to emmigrate…
Here is a Link to the Article which is accessible without cost, but you have to open a free account to view it.

I came across this hilarious TV-ad… Well, if your English isn’t the best, just keep reading this blog and it will improve dramatically !

I like music videos that tell a story, and this one does. There’s almost no dialoge (well there’s some at the ending, but as I’m not capable of speaking Japanese…), but you get the story just fine. And if you’re not a complete ice block it will have you sighing that “awww…”-sigh because it’s sweet and sad and cute. With 8 Minutes it’s a bit long, but it’s well worth the watch, especially when you’re in a sentimental mood… (of course it’s medically impossible, but it’s about the general idea, you unromantic bloke!)