ad++ blog

Asian link list

Today I visited the NYT website for some of it´s asia related articles:

• Two days in Tokyo with frugal traveller on US$ 500
• Bejing choking on growth: environmental pollution may put the 2008 olympics at danger
• Winter fashion in Japan: a nice way to combine fashion with the view of japanese spa´s
• Hidden Tokyo: clubs you´ll never visit
• Losing an edge, Japanese envy India´s Schools

An interesting quote (from the frugal traveller) - after all, the NYT is a US newspaper:

But given today's strong euro, Tokyo can actually be less expensive than some major European cities (and even cheaper than New York)

Scheißpodest

Lesenswert: Die Tüte auf dem Scheißpodest - Michael Preidel macht einen Rückblick auf die documenta 8 (1987).

Now on Wikipedia!

I´ve just added my first entry to Wikipedia and also my first polish-language entry there - on polish poet Ewa Lipska. An entry in German and English will be available soon.

Initially I had a problem since I didn´t know about registering seperately for all sites (German, English and Polish) - I expected a central registration authority. And support for polish character set on a German language Windows XP is limited, too, obviously.

Writing and editing an entry is quite some work - esp. with those slow Wikipedia servers (stats). But, well, finally, it´s finished!

Good statement

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Bertrand Russell

Christmas reading

Worth reading over christmas - asssume there´s more time which may be wrong.

- Made in USA, an essay by Paul Graham, author of Hackers and Painters.
- How Microsoft lost the API war, by Joel Spolsky (via Markus Breuer´s GoogleWatch Dezember part II (in German), also very interesting).

Thermodynamics, evolution and internet governance

Blogs have so much interesting content. I just have to find a moment to read and think through stuff like this on Thermodynamics and Evolution:

Back in 1984, John W. Patterson contributed an essay called "Thermodynamics and Evolution" to a volume of scientific responses to creationism. Creationists have claimed that the second law of thermodynamics ("The Entropy Inventory of the World Tends to a Maximum") conflicts with evolution.

1000 things

Seth Godin has a list of the top 1,000 things to know (or rather just 20 teachable out of these). He notes that you might have learned them at school, but I don´t think that applies to the first 4 on the list:

1. How to type.
2. How to speak in front of a group.
3. How to write clear prose that other people actually want to read.
4. How to manage a project.

7/4

siebenviertel.com sinniert über Buchhandlungen:

Ich suche die einsam Leidenden, die niemand attraktiv genug finden kann, um intime Momente an ihrer Seite verleben zu wollen, die sich in Bücher vergraben, deren Fachwissen anzapfbereit zwischen Sortier- und Kassenaufgaben vor sich hinvegetiert, bis sie eines Tages überschnappen und in Waffenläden gehen.

Spiegel ePaper

The german weekly newsmagazine DerSpiegel will offer an ePaper version starting on 23rd October. The complete magazine will cost € 3, a subscription will be available for € 2.8 per issue. Great!

I already enjoy reading DerStandard´s ePaper edition (the Austrian quality newspaper). A broadband connection is advisable of course. (via PR Blogger).

A side-note: should a blogger check sources? PR blogger didn´t include any link back to Spiegel Online and I didn´t find any article on it there. The only item I found was this Google cache entry.

‽ bang

In case you didn´t know, this ‽ is called a interrobang (= a sign combining both a question mark and an exclamation point, ? and !). Introduced in 1962, not used much though. Weird!

The French may not be amused

The manifesto on the goals of ChangeThis states (bold selection added by myself):

If you get an email containing a ChangeThis manifesto you don´t like, the correct response is not to call names, threaten a career, question motivations or call someone French.

Big Ideas for Download

ChangeThis has 60 big ideas for download from management guru Tom Peters.

ChangeThiz

ChangeThis is a site featuring manifestos (in PDF, well designed) about allmost anything. OK, it not clear that you can write a manifesto about allmost anything, not in the classical term. But here they are: about start-up, customer evangelists, child executions, the right medicine and how to be (or rather not to be) a boor.

Friday

Every friday I´m waiting for one thing. One thing get´s me begging for Friday. Every friday the Rondo supplement of the newspaper DerStandard has the Zufallskolumne. This friday Cosima Reif writes about Parsifal - playing last Sunday in Bayreuth, directed by Christof Schlingensief:

.. meine Karte hat Angela Merkel bekommen. Ja. Meine Karte hat Angela Merkel bekommen. Ja. Angela Merkel hat meine Karte.

Lovely! BTW, I´ve got a ticket for Umberto Eco´s The Name of the Rose playing tonight in Melk. No blogging over the weekend. See you next monday!

Demystify creative thinking

Igor, which isn´t a person but a company, a naming and branding agency to be precise, has a naming guide which is quite interesting (via snarkhunting).

We created the Igor Naming Guide in order to demystify the naming process. In it we show how and why great product and company names work, when focus groups and standard ways of thinking about them might have predicted otherwise. Igor's own naming process is presented in excruciating but logical detail.

Mal anders gesagt

Euphemismen aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Militär.

7/4 on the upcoming election

siebenviertel.com elaborates on election votings, movie titles and answering machines:

...wir sollten übrigens ein neues Ritual einführen, wann immer wieder einer Millenium schreibt, stehen alle auf, stöpseln die Maus um und lesen weiter.

How to use the phone

Learn how to make friends by telephone - a booklet from the 1940´s.

Speak to the person at the other end of the line — not to the telephone — then you’re more apt to be pleasant and understanding.

Is there something like this also for eMail? :-)

Datum

The 1st issue of the new quality magazine DATUM is out. Gotta buy it! (Also ´cause Jacqueline Godany is shooting the pictures for it.) Maybe like an Austrian version of DUMMY? Or maybe like mare for those that don´t swim? Well, I´ll have to read it.

BTW: I gona miss the cool design of /about.

DATUM is certainly more interesting that the other publication that launched this week. :-)

IT reporter

Robert X. Cringely, the famous tech reporter, is interviewed by australian smh.com.au:

If there is one tech columnist who does not take himself too seriously - and in fact pokes jokes at himself - it has to be Cringely. How have you managed to keep getting a swollen head?

No groupies.