Reading stuff

Rob Spence
points out examples of Blog Power.

Democratiya sounds interesting, a a free bi-monthly online review of books - topics: war, peace, just war, and humanitarian interventionism; human rights, genocide, international law, global civil society and more.
They want to contribute to a renewal of the politics of democratic radicalism by providing a forum for serious analysis and debate.

Reading stuff for the holidays, finally.

A premature death

Bruno, aka JJ1, the first wild bear to come to Germany in over 170 years, is dead. Yesterday, he was shot by a Bavarian hunter. At a cost of over €125,000, Bavarian authorities set out to capture Bruno - without any success. A Finnish team of bear hunters was flown in to follow his trail - they didn't succeed either. For weeks he fooled everybody. Read more about the epic quality of his short but adventurous life in Austria and Germany.

Google in China

Philipp Lenssen did a test. He checked 10,000 words from an English dictionary in Google.cn web search, with Chinese language settings. 901 – 9% – of the words checked returned censored results. He defines a result as "censored" whenever Google shows their own censorship disclaimer ("According to local laws and policies some search results are not showing"). He stresses that its not words that are being censored, but search results respectively websites.

Here a few randomly selected words from his long list:
secluded, segment, segregation, sent, sentence, sentimental, separate, serious, sessions, setback, seventeen, seventeenth, seventy, sexy, shah, shaken, shire, shocking, shortage, shortfall, shorthand, shorts, shown, shrimp, si, sibling, sideways, sighted, sing, situation, sixteen, sixteenth, skinny, slain, slim, sloppy, sluggish, sly, smashed, snoop, sob, soften, solely, solemn, solitude, sonic, sonny, sophistication, soul, sour, sovereignty, spawn, sperm, spinach, spirits, splits, sport, spotted, squeeze, stall, stance, standby, stars, start, stationery, steep, stimulate, stoke, stool, stopping, straightforward, strait, streamlined, strengthen, struck, stumble, subsidiary, substitute, suburb, suck, suffer, suitable, suitcase, sunset, super, suppose, supposedly, surge, surprise, surrender, sway, symmetrical, takeover, talented, technology, tedious, teenage, teenager, teens, tenure, terms, terrain, terror, tertiary, theoretically, therefore, thirteen, this, thorough, thread, threat, threaten, threw, thrill,

Bloomsday blossoms

It's Bloomsday. Let's read the big man (aloud)!:

Mullee! What's on you? MA MERE M'A MARIEE. British Beatitudes! RETAMPLATAN DIGIDI BOUMBOUM. Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. SILENTIUM! Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (attitudes!) parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggery and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample the bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation! Keep the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt! Heave to. Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most amazingly sorry!

From Ulysses

James Joyce

Digital Maoism?

On Edge (magazine)there’s an interesting discourse going on: collective vs. individual.

Jaron Lanier writes about “Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”.
Lots of responses to that, e.g. from Douglas Rushkoff, Quentin Hardy, Yochai Benkler, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow, Kevin Kelly, Esther Dyson, Larry Sanger, Fernanda Viegas & Martin Wattenberg, Jimmy Wales, George Dyson, Dan Gillmor, Howard Rheingold.

One of Lanier’s points regarding Wikipedia: the collective is seen as all-wise which has had dreadful consequences in history and which is now re-introduced by technologists and futurists.

I fail to see anything foolish (Quote Lanier: "The Wikipedia is far from being the only online fetish site for foolish collectivism"..)in the collaborative efforts of the Wikipedia, nor anything even faintly related to totalitarism. Besides, the work numerous people do there out of their free will may present itself as a collective effort but comes from the decision of individuals with individual expertise and skills. And why play off the Britanica against the Wikipedia? Why not use both?

Douglas Rushkoff writes: “Projects like Wikipedia do not overthrow any elite at all, but merely replace one elite — in this case an academic one — with another: the interactive media elite”. I cannot see a replacement yet, but there’s certainly a very active interactive media elite next to the academic one – with people belonging to both groups - which is a good thing, indeed.

Stock Exchange for Trend Words

On Trendio you can bet on any word of which you think it will be more quoted in the media in the future (from the world of politics, sports, events, stars and so on).

The words are rated according to the number of times they appear in 3000 anglophone media web sites from around the world. You can buy the words you believe will be gainers in the next future and sell others. The service is free,but you have to register and you get $10,000 play money. Recent top gainers were the words "Cuba", "Michael Jackson", "Bill Gates","national debt", and "ADHD".

The Swine and his Tiger - Guest Blog

Yesterday, I heard that Costa Rica's National Team considered "the Man with the 7" to be the most dangerous one in the German team. Who? They couldn't pronounce his name (probably this makes him even more peculiar ...).

This morning, I read an interview with Pelé, and he spoke about a young player with a name sounding like a whiskey-brand. He seems to have heavy problems with the pronunciation of the name and meant Swine's Tiger! So, that way it is correct: Sebastian Schweinsteiger. Still probs? Just call him Sweiney. That's what we Germans do as well.

Stevie, Guestblogger

Red is for winners

There's a lot of interesting soccer-related articles in the New Scientist, such as one about a mathematical study which found out that soccer is the most exciting sport, another that presents a formula for predicting the winners. Besides, scientific research says that red is the colour of the winners. Various studies have also shed light on soccer-specific injuries ("A head for balls can be a pain in the neck"). Does make sense.

Congrats to the German team for a good start! Even if they didn't wear red ....

Play up and fire away!

The Foliomagazine of the "Neue Zuerchner Zeitung "asked several well-known authors to comment on their teams' chances of success in the FIFA world championship. You can read them in Sign and Sight. For Germany they asked the famous writer Robert Gernhardt.
He wrote an acrostic:

Germany will win, there's no denying -
Everyone agrees, or else they're lying!
Right it is, that the world's fixed its eyes on
Multitalent on the Deutsche horizon.

Allow me the luxury of generalizing,
No need for me here to be proselytizing.
Yes, each of our boys is his weight in gold;
With skills like theirs' a poet's made bold.

In citing the one or the other credential,
Lose sight I would of all the potential
Lying in wait in that mystical being

Which goes by the name of the German team.
Its victorious wings will carry it up;
Not a thing can prevent it from taking that cup!



Well, then get started, boys, will ya?

Bankfurt

frankfurt-reflexions
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich.

Frankfurt is Germany's financial capital. Every other house seems to be a bank (such as the European Central Bank) - therefore the nickname Bankfurt, or insurance company, the rest are the offices of airlines and restaurants, snack bars and hotels.

And it is also famous for its trade fairs, especially the Frankfurt Book Fair.

From what I've seen during that short stay: There are lots of cultural institutions along the Main, also known as Museum embankment, such as the Staedel, the Museum for Modern Art and the Schirn Gallery. I'm definitely going there a third time, this summer. Especially since I've not even tried the famous "Ebbelwoi" (apple wine, comparable to cider).

Eric Clapton: virtuoso!

frankfurtpfingsten06 007
Originally uploaded by francessa_Rich.

Eric Clapton in Frankfurt - what a night! We were very close to the stage (and to the very loud loudspeakers, unfortunately, but this was a minor and the only discomfort). After the Robert Cray-Band's performance there was a long waiting, and when Eric & Co. arrived they started without warning, got right into the thing with "Pretending". Fantastic, powerful! No chumming up to the public, highly professional, but never too detached, not artificial, with lots of fun going on among the crew. EC was accompanied by two outstanding guitarists, Doyle Bramhall II, and Derek Trucks (very good). I liked everything, but especially "The Bell Bottom Blues", "Running on Faith", "Wonderful Tonight" and "Cocaine", and oh yes, the encore: "Crossroads" ! And EC himself! A few chunks from the FAZ (big German newspaper): "exhilarating improvisations, the energy of a 30-year-old, with closed eyes, body bent backwards, fueling his companions!" Wonderful, this night. Besides, I discovered Frankfurt, a lively spot with lots of museums and exhibits and what I think the only sky(scraper)line in Europe. Of course, everything is now interspersed with the artifacts and primings for the impending soccer world-championship, starting this Friday! The photo was made from a very nice roof-deck-café in the city center.

Till Tuesday

Blog's closed until Tuesday. There might be a short account of Mr Slowhand's concert in Frankfurt.