Reporting Tales - non-technical tag

Why OpenSource is the thing that changes the world

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:25:00 GMT

During a TED conference back in 2005, Yochai Benkler gave a great talk about why OpenSource and the whole social production schemas we saw emerging during the last years are a revolution as big as the transition of agricultural societies into the industrial age.

We in the OpenSource crowd of course know that our path is leading to a bright future. But if you go out and randomly select one of the many OpenSource community members to explain, why this thing is THE BIG THING, you probably end up drowned in words but you wont be smarter than before. Until now, I haven't found a explanation as clear and simple as the one given in this 17 minutes talk.

(Source: TED recorded conference talks)

I'm safe: Weekly consumption of alcohol is good for you

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:58:00 GMT

I always instinctively knew, that a constant supply of alcohol is a positive thing. Not only allows it to separate good concepts from flawed ones (also known as Wine-Test), no, it also makes you life longer than those puritans, who drink no alcohol at all. (Of course, as with all medicine, too much is still deadly. But medicine barely tastes half as good, doesn't it?)

Well, of course all of this is true, at least according to the European Heart Journal

Americans Food is the ultimate test

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:00:00 GMT

For the last two years I stood in awe how the common American people manage to survive the daily meal. There are countries in the world, where serving a typical American burger or barbecued something is considered a serious crime (if not a violation of the Geneva Conventions). Rumors even say, that the first representative of McDonalds coming to France was shot on sight.

And everyone who ever stayed in one of the many Hotels (for instance in the Orlando Airport area), knows that every word said about the food (no matter how bad) is true.

Well, until recently I also believed that truth.

Gretchen and Doug, two fellow colleagues from Pentaho, introduced me to the other side of the All-American food chain. Their invitation to a charity community meal on Merrit-Island showed me, that there is hope for America. There was a wide variety of foods and flavors, an amazing mix of Italian, German and other european influences composed to a bazaar of eatable things. The world's cuisines at your fingertips.

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure that I now know, why they make the Hotel food so bad. Its an test. Only those who survive the horrible food there are worthy enough to even be considered to become citizens. Its the ultimate test: Eat our "food" and risk a horrible death or go back from where you came.

(Which makes me wonder, why still so many Mexicans try to cross the border to the north. But then again: They probably only get spanish style food, like the stuff I encountered in Barcelona. In that case, even the things they serve in the Hotels is an improvement over that.)

So if you're traveling into the U.S. and dont want to choose between starving to death or risking to eat the tourist-food, then strive away from the main roads and explore what the real country has to offer. You will be astonished!