summer time

Skirts for men...

very particular gallery of clothing recommended to me by google ads... god knows why...

New experiences

Life is full of surprises, continuously offering chances for new achievments.. On my list there are two of them accomplished in the last 2 days.

#1 My first LAN party! Finally the day of shame arrived and I had to admit that some computer games actually might be fun... (it'll be hell to pay once my brothers read this..)

#2 Arriving for a rehearsal WITHOUT any music sheets! Usually not so dramatic, if you're used to a big orchestra - however, if you play chamber music or solo things become a bit different... also, it does not help if the rehearsal in question is the last one before the concert...
Luckily, a partitura was around for some pieces. For the rest, my lazyness to pull out the sheets when I'm studying finally payed off - I knew some things by heart... So in the end, apart from some increased adrenalin level nothing really happened. Now I'm wondering... a chaotic final rehearsal is said to bring a good concert... hope its true, should be magnificent in the end ;)

Ma(r)x Planck

Wie ihr vielleicht mitbekommen hat, wurde entdeckt, dass unser bekannter Wissenschaftler über die Zeit wohl einen Buchstaben im Vornamen eingebüßt hat.. einen Zeitungsartikel diesbezüglich findet ihr auf spiegel online.

Dort fand ich auch die folgende quantenphysische Erklärung für das Abhandenkommen (oder auch die nur scheinbare Abwesenheit) dieses 'r'. Viel Vergnügen!

ask or not?

There is a saying 'Who asks is a fool for five minutes. Who does not is one forever.'

I wonder if that is true. If you regard only the level of information, the assumption might hold, supposing you could not have drawn it from other sources. However, I think there might be questions that leave you quite unprotected to people's judgment about you and they might get you wrong. So what makes a fool a fool? The fact of not knowing something or the fact that others take them for one?

to lie or to lie? it's just not the same...

Seeing that there were quite some heated discussions about lying in the grass, why/if people were supposed to lie with someone and later lie about it, I decided to dedicate this post to the issue.
As usual dictionary.com is my friend and helper, and for some of you hopefully this will bring order in your troubled mind wondering if your lying was of a proper and/or decent nature.
Enjoy :)

Kryptographie

Anscheinend ist es jetzt Mode geworden, sogar veröffentlichte Texte wüstest zu 'verschlüsseln'. Dieser Eintrag macht mich buchstäblich sprachlos, denn solcher Urwuchs im Sprachengarten spricht der Schreiberin schon fast die Kompetenz zu dessen Pflege ab. In Anbetracht solcher Verwüstung/Verwirrung scheint jede Diskussion über Sprachreformen obsolet, denn bei einem Fehlen jeglicher Logik kann man vom Verständnis von Regeln nur träumen.
Mein Beileid jedem Deutschlehrer ;)

Mit diesem Hintergrund überrascht es auch nicht mehr, dass laut einer Studie Einwanderer oft besser ausgebildet sind, als die hiesigen EU-Bürger. Denn wenn man nicht einmal seine eigene Sprache im Griff hat, wie soll man sich an nur annähernd komplexere Gedankengänge heranwagen?

Connotations

Let me ask you a question: What springs to your mind when someone mentions the term 'Internet'?

Usually the expected connotations would lie in the direction 'fast', 'up to date', 'modern technologies' etc. Maybe someone might point out that it is not that a new invention anymore, but I wonder if anyone would really consider it to be 'old'? Like in 'stone-age' old?

It might happen though if you can tempt yourself to belive in this trenitalia advert:


The writing on this train roughly translates to 'Nowadays tickets are bought over the internet'. Fair point, now this is everyday business. But it has not been for so long, a few years maybe so this left me a bit confused with some questions in my mind.

I wondered about HOW modern Trenitalia possibly is. Usually I don't take them for a very cutting edge company. So I guess they probably were not the pioneers of e-commerce and 'being modern' seemed off the list.
So maybe someone with some sense of irony decided to paint the ad on an old train? Because rust and new technologies go so well together? Somehow this did not entirely convince me either.
After a very long and sleepless night, something else came to my mind: maybe I completely misunderstood Trenitalias concept of making the world a better place! Seeing that they are already working so hard to procure additional holidays for people by making their workplace unavailable this might just be the next step towards that goal.
Suppose this train is simply environmental friendly? Built of fast decomposing metal which takes less than 5 years to show serious signs of trying to get back where it came from: under the earth. Wouldn't that be fabulous? And wait until they start with bio-degradable rails!

About happiness

J'ai décidé d'être heureux, c'est excellent pour la santé. (Voltaire)

Die deutsche Version gefällt mir auch:

Weil es für die Gesundheit zuträglich ist, habe ich beschlossen glücklich zu sein.

:)

Why you should look after your keyboard...

What do you think has more bacteria on it? Your office toilet or your keyboard?

You probably wish for the first but probability is high that its the second.. here is an article which just confirms my personal aversion to sticky keyboards:

Bacteria Wars: Keyboard versus Toilet

London, England - Researchers in London say your computer keyboard may be dirtier than your toilet. A consumer group tested 33 office keyboards for bacteria. They found four of them were potential health hazards. One of those four had five times the germs as one of the office’s toilet seats.

Keyboards pick up germs through sneezing and coughing. Also, workers who eat at their desk leave behind crumbs that become havens for bacteria. Workers not washing their hands after using the bathroom also contribute to the mess on the keyboard.

To keep your keyboard germ free, experts recommend shaking out all the crumbs and dust. Then wipe it off using a slightly damp lint-free cloth. You could also use an alcohol swab.

One microbiologist said that your keyboard is often a reflection of what’s in your nose and in your gut.

original to be found here