Twitter on my blog

Dienstag, 7. Februar 2012 10:21

I want to give the regular articles more prominence on my blog again, and hope I will get around to writing more of them, too. You can still catch up with my Twitter here, where there is always something happening.

Thema: English | Kommentare deaktiviert

Der Weg des Diogenes

Sonntag, 16. Juni 2013 11:29

Aus „Komm ich erzähl Dir eine Geschichte“ von Jorge Bucay eine kleine Solche.

Der Weg des Diogenes

Eines Tages saß Diogenes auf der Schwelle irgendeines Hauses und aß einen Teller Linsen. In ganz Athen gab es kein billigeres Essen als dieses Linsengericht. Anders gesagt, einen Teller Linsen zu essen bedeutete, daß man sich in einer äußerst prekären Situation befand.

Ein Minister des Kaisers sagte zu ihm: »Wie bedauerlich für dich, Diogenes! Wenn du lernen würdest, etwas unterwürfiger zu sein und dem Kaiser ein bißchen mehr zu schmeicheln, müßtest du nicht so viele Linsen essen.«

Diogenes hörte auf zu essen, hob den Blick, sah den wohlhabenden Gesprächspartner fest an und antwortete: »Bedauerlich für dich, Bruder. Wenn du lernen würdest, ein paar Linsen zu essen, müßtest du nicht so unterwürfig sein und dem Kaiser ständig schmeicheln.«

(Quelle)

Thema: Deutsch | Kommentare deaktiviert

Is competition healthy for governments?

Mittwoch, 18. April 2012 20:31

I enjoy reading economist Greg Mankiw because he often makes conservative political views understandable for me — even if rarely agreeable. He misses the mark completely in a recent NYTimes opinion on competition between governments. I am especially astounded how the counter-arguments are right there in his own article, but he fails to notice them. Let me start with his main statement:

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Thema: English | Kommentare deaktiviert

Psychotherapie-Witze — verschiedene Therapeuten erklären den Weg zum Bahnhof

Montag, 9. April 2012 12:58

Einer meiner Lieblingswitze, d.h. eigentlich eine Serie von Witzen, den ich schon so oft googeln musste, dass ich ihn jetzt mal hier festhalte. Erklärt, was verschiedene Therapieschulen und andere soziale Berufe im Kern so machen in jeweils einem Satz.

Ein Passant fragt: „Wo geht’s denn hier zum Bahnhof?“ Es antwortet ihm ein:

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Thema: Deutsch | Kommentare (2)

Automatic Bcc to arbitrary e-mail-address in Apple Mail

Donnerstag, 9. Februar 2012 16:20

With a little help from the internet I figured out how to automatically send a Bcc (blindcopy) of each outgoing e-mail from Apple’s Mail.app (the standard OS X Mail Program) to an e-mail address of my choice (there is a standard setting for sending a copy to the sender address, which is not what I wanted — I like having a copy of everything in my gmail account). As usually, you can do anything you like using the Terminal to change the default properties of the program.

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Thema: English | Kommentare deaktiviert

Supermarkets, Free Markets and why the Evolution Analogy fails

Freitag, 2. Dezember 2011 23:31

The Guardian has a very informative article on how supermarkets have taken over the country (in this case of course the UK), virtually wiping out small shops and changing communities for the worse. Some of the numbers:

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Thema: English | Kommentare (1)

Avoiding Bad Love — Reality, Respect and Misunderstood Romance

Montag, 14. November 2011 20:30

A combination of personal experiences, conversations with friends and reading feminist blogs (more serious thoughts on the Nice Guy™ concept I encountered there coming soon) have tempted me into writing a little guide to avoiding bad love, in basically two sections: Reality and Respect, with Misunderstood Romance as an overarching theme holding them together.

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Thema: English | Kommentare (1)

Brazil 2: WWOOFing on the Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza

Montag, 14. November 2011 20:07

In the spirit of a rainy Sunday (now that my free time is mostly concentrated on the weekend, that really sucks) I’m catching up with my blogging. So these are almost real-time pictures from my current life and work on the Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza as a WWOOFer (these are the Brazil farms, mine is BRA108). Their main product is Bob-o-link Coffee, but they also have a range of „micro-lot“ coffees, specific beans in small quantities. And there’s a café in Freiburg using their coffee: „Elephant Beans“ in Basler Straße near Johanneskirche (for the locals ;) ), run by Jörg Volkmann who I had the pleasure to briefly talk to on Skype. Oh how the world is small!

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Thema: English, Weltreise 2011 | Kommentare (2)

Thor vs. Jesus and Social Science

Mittwoch, 9. November 2011 16:45

This little comic comparing different gods‘ achievement made me laugh twice — first because the comparison is so sweet, and second when I talked about it with a friend who pointed to some methodological flaws in the conclusion. So I can’t resist sharing it here, and commenting on how it illustrates some problems in (especially) social science research on intervention effects.

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Thema: English | Kommentare deaktiviert

Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism — Empiricism meets Constructivism

Montag, 7. November 2011 0:31

Following some of the feminist blogosphere since some time now, I frequently come across criticisms of „Evolutionary Psychology“. Discussing some of that with a friend who works in the field revealed that there is a lot of discontent and a feeling of being misunderstood among scholars there. A reply from an evolutionary psychologist that he referred me to disappointed me (I want to respond in detail to that later), as well as a recent journal publication with a very promising title (David M. Buss & David P. Schmitt (2011). Evolutionary Psychology and Feminism [pdf]. Sex Roles. doi:10.1007/s11199-011‑9987-3). Both show that they are at least as ignorant of what the critique is all about as their critics are of Evolutionary Psychology. I’m going to try to fill in some of these gaps in both directions, and explain why I mostly side with „the feminists“ at the end. This is at the same time part of a thought process of mine concerning epistemology („what and how can we know about the world“) and the role of science in a much more general sense. I didn’t really feel ready to write about that yet, but I might not anytime soon, and this kind of discussion arises so often that I decided to share my preliminary thoughts. I’m aware there will be holes and inconsistencies and look forward to criticism.

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Thema: English | Kommentare (9)