7 pm: a microwave and a letter are abandoned on the ground floor of a building with 36 flats.

“Dear neighbours,

I’d like to get rid of this micro-wave. I bought it a year ago for 30€, never used it, and would like to give it away.
If you take it, maybe you can simply put 10€ into my mailbox?

– Thanks
E.F.”

2.30 am: 7.5 hours laters, coming home from a trip to a restaurant and two bars with good friends.
The microwave has disappeared, and I find 10€ in the mailbox.

Life is good.

Wort des Tages: Raublöschung

Lebenswert: Seltenerdenmetalle

People tend to say: “Eiko, it’s so easy to make you happy”, and then they laugh at me.

But they do have a point … eating a pizza will usually make me extremely happy. It is as simple as that. And there are other things.

Receiving beautiful letters, for instance. I haven’t dared to open it yet, but it looks promising.

It’s all in black!!

Update: Read the rest of this entry »

Worth living for:

• Meeting friends in Paule’s Metal Eck I had not seen for 5 months
• Playing kicker in Paule’s Metal Eck, which I had not done for a year
• And in case you haven’t guessed already: Paule’s Metal Eck. Oh yeah.

XKCD did a color survey with over 200.000 user sessions, and came up with results both hilarious and interesting.

And since we all know that there isn’t really anything better than something that is both hilarious and interesting, I feel the obligation to share this with you.

A few results, just as an appetizer:

• If you ask people to name colors long enough, they go totally crazy.
• Colorblind people are more likely than non-colorblind people to type “fuck this” (or some variant) and quit in frustration.
• A couple dozen people embedded SQL ‘drop table’ statements in the color names. Nice try, kids. [If you don't understand, check this webcomic]
• Color names most disproportionately popular among women: 1. Dusty Teal, 2. Blush Pink, 3. Dusty Lavender, 4. Butter Yellow, 5. Dusky Rose
• Color names most disproportionately popular among men: 1. Penis, 2. Gay, 3. WTF, 4. Dunno, 5. Baige
• Nobody can spell “fuchsia”.

“Die richtigen Arschlöcher sind nämlich die Viecher, die nicht weglaufen können.”
(Lebensweisheit eines Sohns, in einer Diskussion um Toxine, die Schimmelpilze absondern, um Konkurrenz-Schimmel zu bekämpfen)

“Wer alles kann … der muss auch alles machen.”
(Lebensweisheit eines Vaters)

(Danke an meine tollen quasi-Nachbarn)

• The smell of the sun when showernig after a sunbath.
• “Noble Chocolate” and “Pear” icecream.

EDIT: also, cherry-trees are pretty amazing.

Eight days ago, I happened to watch the most influential German TV news: Tagesthemen at 8pm. Sitting in the living room of my grandmother, I hoped that they would show footage of what happened at a press conference that day, and was very surprised as they actually did.

They ran a two minutes story about the video Wikileaks released that day:

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website www.collateralmurder.com.

Finally, Wikileaks has reached the German mass media. I consider it one of the most important democratic tools the internet currently offers, and am very happy that it has been mentioned in the Tagesthemen.

What is Wikileaks?

• Scroll down on their website, and “Click here to make a secure submission.” That’s the main thing about Wikileaks.
• Wikileaks gives people the opportunity to publish documents they think are important for the public – anonymously. We have seen courts all over the world forcing newspapers and other media to disclose their sources in the last years, Wikileaks is trying to fill this gap.
• 10 questions on Wikileaks on CPJ blog (Committee to protect journalists)
• ForeignPolicy wrote an article called “Is This the Future of Journalism? Why Wikileaks matters.”
• A post I wrote a couple of months ago about Wikileaks leaking a document written by the British Ministry of Defence giving advice on how to stop documents leaking onto the internet

WikiLeaks is an organization protecting internal dissidents, whistleblowers, journalists and bloggers who face legal or other threats related to publishing. Our primary interest is in exposing oppressive regimes [...], we are of assistance to people of all nations who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their governments and corporations. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources. We believe that transparency in government activities leads to reduced corruption, better government and stronger democracies.

If you are going to spend a bit of money on charity projects this year, consider giving $10 to Wikileaks. They accept no other funding than private donations, since they want to stay absolutely incorruptable and transparent.