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Allgemein English Ethik Politik

Rains up here in Europe

The water from Prague will probably reach the north of Germany by tomorrow.

Rains in Europe

I read an interesting article in the newspaper, the other day. Consider global warming. Warm air obviously holds more moisture than cold air. This is first grade physics which is easy enough for me to understand. Thus, the increase in rain and floods in recent years.

I believe that this might serve as yet another warning to finally do something about this issue. Unfortunately, as has been the case with the Euro, German politicians are dragging their feet and not doing a lot of what is needed, at all.

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CdeBurgh English Ethik

Up Here in Heaven

I had a very special time last night. For the meeting of the Elders at our local church, it was my turn to do the biblical introduction at the beginning of the meeting. So I chose to talk about the song, „Up Here in Heaven“ by Chris de Burgh, from the 1994 album „This Way Up“.

I played the song from CD to our group, sitting in the rows of the church, and I then gave my thoughts on the lyrics which CdeB used.

Up here in heaven, we stand together
Both the enemy and the friend, until the end of time,
There is only one God up here, the God of the world.

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English Google Internet Jura Webseiten

Cookies

A strange new fad from the UK now arrived in Germany. All the websites in the UK started asking if it is „OK to set cookies“. Now google.de are doing this in Germany, too.

Guys, don’t you think it would be high time to start addressing the REAL threats on the internet? Like spam, phishing, malware, identity theft, the monopoly of Google.

Cookies are *not* part of this threat. It is simply stealing people’s time to care about cookies, if you at the same time ignore the *serious* issues facing us on the internet.

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CdeBurgh English

Chris de Burgh in Cologne

Lebanese Night

For the Cologne concert this year, there will not be a „real“ fanmeeting like the one Astrid organized two years ago. However, for those of you interested, I am arranging a „get-together“ before the show.

Prior to the Chris de Burgh concert on Sunday, May 19th, we shall have a „Lebanese Night“, or rather, Lebanese afternoon. The meeting will take place at the Lebanese / Palestinian Restaurant „Bethlehem“ in Cologne, starting at 5 p.m.

Directions: The restaurant is easy to find if you have a look at the map on http://www.restaurant-bethlehem.de

Please don’t be surprised to read opening times of 17.30 – 24.00 on that site. The restaurant will in fact be opening early on Sunday, especially for us.

It might be difficult to find a place to park your car next to the restaurant, therefore, people are advised to use public transport, or else, park your car next to the „Philharmonie“. If you are coming by train, please use tram no. 5 from Cologne main station, directions see below.

From the „Philharmonie“, it is very easy to get to „Restaurant Bethlehem“. It is a three-minute walk to the tram (underground) station „Rathaus“. When standing in front of the Philharmonie’s main entrance, simply walk straight ahead, passing the main entrance of „Hotel Mondial“ and crossing the next street. You will soon be at „Alter Markt“, which can be identified by a statue of Cologne’s main historical hero, Jan van Werth, in the middle of the square. Just next to the Jan van Werth monument, you will need to descend to the subway. From there, take tram No 5 (the only one at that station, in fact, so you cannot go wrong) for nine stops, alighting at „Lenauplatz“. Then walk backwards (against the direction of travel) for 20 metres, turn half-right into the next street (Iltisstraße) and after walking about 50 metres you will be at „Lenauplatz“. The restaurant is located on the left side of Lenauplatz and you will hear Chris de Burgh music blasting across the square, so it will be impossible to miss.

For those of you that already have a ticket for the show, don’t worry about having to buy a tram ticket. The price of the tram (tube) has already been paid for with your entrance ticket to „Philharmonie“. If in doubt, simply show the Chris de Burgh ticket to the conductor of the tram.

If you don’t yet have any ticket for the show, don’t worry, just come along anyway. There will be 200 extra tickets for the concent, available at the ticket booth of „Philharmonie“ from 18.30 hours on Sunday. These are „standing“, i.e. you will not get a seat allocated to you, but who wants to sit through a CdeB concert anyway? We are all coming to enjoy ourselves and dance, aren’t we?

For the restaurant’s owner, Kifah, who is a great fan of Elissa, appearing in „Lebanese Night“, it would be great if he roughly knew the number of people planning to attend. Please give me a call at 0800 58 934 13 894 (free call within Germany) before 8 p.m. Saturday if you are planning to attend the pre-show party.

Timing is Everything in Life.

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English Microsoft

Microsoft blues

This week Microsoft said it was rethinking „key aspects“ of its new operating system, Windows 8. (…) A Microsoft executive insisted that „customer satisfaction“ with [Windows 8] „is strong“ while also conceding that „the learning curve is definitely real“.

(Translation: customers are tearing out their hair and scattering it on the keyboard.)

Source: The Economist, May 11th-17th, 2013, page 64.

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Allgemein English Fussball

German invasion of England

Our newspapers report that about 100,000 to 200,000 Germans will be coming over to London on May 25th, the day of the UEFA Champions League finals, with Borussia Dortmund taking on their German rivals, FC Bayern München. Not all of the German supporters will get tickets for the game, they just want to be near their teams for the final.

Robben Bayern MunichTalk about a German invasion of England – albeit slightly different from the one planned for the year 1940.

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English Google Svenska

ogooglebar

Some of my friends are not fluent in German, so I promised to write an entry in English every now and then. However, this one should really be in Swedish.

ogooglebar means „not possible to find using the Google search engine“ and is a Swedish term consisting of the prefix „o“ meaning „not“ (pronounced just like the double-o in „Google“), the name of a common search engine and the suffix „bar“ describing the main term, meaning „possible to use“.

The idea was published on the BBC web site today. I like the sound of the word „ogooglebar“, or, as the BBC author more elegantly puts it, ogooglebar is much more mellifluous.

But much more importantly, I think the philosophy conveyed by this article is worth spending a moment contemplating. Something which cannot be found on Google doesn’t exist, right? Or perhaps, put more mildly, something which isn’t on Google must be something „special“ these days.

How many special things do you have in your life?

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Allgemein English Ethik

… at least at Christmas time

I liked the thoughts of our Pastor about Christmas so much, so I decided to translate them into English.

http://nathanael.kirche-koeln.de/aktuelles_pfarrwort.php#English

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Bildung English Jura

The use of e-mails in Germany

Did you ever write an e-mail? Well, you probably used the @ sign then.

On the site, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign I just found the strange sentence

Since 23 October 2012, the At-sign is registered as a trade Mark by the German Patent and Trade Mark Office – DPMA (registration number 302012038338) for @T.E.L.L. Trading house for exclusive luxury labels GmbH, 69469 Weinheim, DE. From now on it’s illegal for other commercial interests to use the At-sign.

which does seem to be a strange kind of Wikipedia humour, doesn’t it?

Of course, a German patent only applies to a class of goods. In this case, the patent was not applied for the use in IT, so it is _not_ illegal for commercial companies to use the At-sign. Perhaps I don’t understand Wikipedia humour.