Kategorie: English

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Bildung English Geschichte Internet

From papyrus to pixels

The growth rate of e-books has recently slowed in many markets. Publishers now expect most of their sales to remain in print books for decades to come – some say for ever.

There are a number of reasons. One is that the print book is „a really competitive technology“: it is portable, hard to break, has high-resolution pages and a „long battery life“.

bookshelf

Sales of e-readers, the most popular of which is the Kindle, are in decline. „In a few years‘ time, we will look back at e-readers and remember them as one of the shortest-lived of all consumer media devices.“

The Economist, October 11th 2014, p 47

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English Ethik Internet Jura

Fear of Missing Out

Think about life without your smartphone, without Internet access, without texting or e-mail or the apps you use every day. I’m guessing most of you would feel rather lost and left behind. Kids call this FOMO, or “fear of missing out.”

With Going Dark, those of us in law enforcement and public safety have a major fear of missing out—missing out on predators who exploit the most vulnerable among us…missing out on violent criminals who target our communities.

James B. Comey
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.
October 16, 2014

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English Ethik

Dyslexic atheist

Have you ever heard
about the dyslexic atheist
who spent all his live
trying to prove
that dog does not exist?

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English Ethik Internet Webseiten

We are the product that Facebook has been testing

Dear John Gapper,

frankly, I don’t understand what all this fuss is about. So Facebook has been manipulating the results users get to see. So what’s new about this? As every avid Facebook user has known for years, and as you yourself are pointing out in today’s „Financial Times“, Facebook is doing this on a daily basis.

This is done based on lots of secret calculations that none of us know. So for just one incident that happened two years ago, part of these calculations have now been made public. I couldn’t care less. If I don’t like what Facebook is doing, I will go somewhere else. Full stop.

By the way, I am not an American citizen. Most of Facebook’s users are not. Therefore, I don’t care about the 1979 consent test for US academic research. It doesn’t apply to me.

Yours sincerely

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Bildung English Ethik Politik

Brick Wall

I don’t know who the heck is David Suzuki, but never mind everyone arguing about where they are going to sit. The person in the DRIVER’S SEAT needs to turn the car, not the people in the back.

David Suzuki

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Bildung English Internet

Rubbish on Facebook

This is a prime example of rubbish information found on Facebook.

rubbishinfo

All of us will be able to see that this information is rubbish, once you start to think of it for half a minute. Yet, it is being shared on Facebook because we think it is „interesting“ and worth sharing.

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DM English Geschichte VWL

new £1 coin

poundcoin

Today HM Treasury is introducing a new £1 coin. Find out more at http://bit.ly/1fZ7Hj5

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English Ethik Jura

The $20 Bill

John Tesh
Hero of the day: 19-year-old Dairy Queen manager, Joey Prusak.
He was serving a blind customer when the man dropped a $20 bill without knowing it.
The woman in line behind him quickly picked it up and … tucked it in her purse.
Prusak asked her to give it back, she refused, and the teen eventually kicked her out: “I told her, ‘Ma’am, you can either return the $20 bill or you can leave the store, because I’m not going to serve someone as disrespectful as you.'“
She left, but it didn’t stop there: Prusak went over to the table of the blind man and gave him $20 out of his own pocket.
Prusak says: „I was just doing what I thought was right. I did it without even really thinking about it.“
Nice job Joey!

Joey Prusak

My comment on this story, found on Facebook and liked by 2,097,000 people to date:

Why did he tell her „‘Ma’am, you can either return the $20 bill or you can leave the store“. He shouldn’t have given her a choice. He should have told her to return the $20 bill. Full stop.

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English Ethik Humor

Rain

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”

Bob Marley

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English Transport & Verkehr

Book your Train Ticket six months in advance

Quite sad, but this is actually a piece of news: on the Eurostar website, it is now possible to book a train ticket six months in advance.

Book now, Bask later
Book now, Bask later

It will probably take a few more years for European railways to realize that if they keep the outdated policy of allowing tickets to be booked not longer than three months in advance, they will never win the battle against airlines.