2009-11-25
11:03:17 von Stephan, Kategorien: Deutsch , Schlagworte: autoren, books, buchsuche, deutschland, eigentum, google, verlage Googles Buchsuche ist eine äußerst nützliche Sache, erlaubt sie doch das einfache Finden relevanter Informationen im Volltext von über sieben Millionen Büchern sowie eine (auszugsweise) Vorschau.
Ganz anders sehen das deutsche Autoren und Verlage: Google Books verletze die "Ausschließlichkeitsrechte der Autoren urheberrechtlich geschützter Werke", so der Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels.
Was hierbei übersehen wird: Auch geistiges Eigentum verpflichtet. "Sein Gebrauch soll zugleich dem Wohle der Allgemeinheit dienen." Wissen ist zudem "der erste Rohstoff, der sich bei Gebrauch vermehrt". Womit klar ist: Das Wohl der Allgemeinheit lässt sich am besten durch den einfachen Zugang zu geistigem Eigentum mehren.
Ich bin keineswegs der Meinung, dass dieser Zugang nichts kosten darf und zahle z.B. gerne monatlich 40 US$ für Safari Books Online von O'Reilly. Ein vergleichbares Angebot deutscher Verlage ist mir allerdings nicht bekannt.
Wer längst vorhandene technische Möglichkeiten nicht nutzt, den bestraft Google. Zu Recht.
2009-11-20
Peru's National Police claim to have busted a gang which killed obese people, extracted their fat and sold it to "European cosmetics companies".
Wondering why this is good news? Well, the media has focused on the gruesome aspects of this story, totally missing the real news: American consumers can start spending again! With fat worth $15.000 a liter, it won't be long before they will be able to take out mortgages on their bodies. As 32.7% of Americans are overweight, 34% obese and a lucky 6% extremely obese, the United States are in a unique position to reclaim their status as an economic heavyweight.
The institutions formerly known as investment banks are probably already preparing structured financial products to leverage American fat wealth. All that Ben Bernanke has to do now is to bolster confidence in the dollar by showing a few images from the "People of Walmart".
The economic crisis is therefore over. The next Nobel prize for economics peace prize should go to the allegedly confessed murderer in Peru. Yes, he may be - according to a psychological evaluation - "a cynic who tends to lie", he has certainly heard the old wives' tales about the Pishtaco and he may even have watched (or read) "Fight Club", but he did what no one else could: jump start the global growth engine.
Have a nice weekend.
Brighten up your day with the most beautiful songs (as up-voted on Reddit) or - if that's what you prefer - listen to the "saddest playlist ever".
Links to original threads:
2009-11-16
The following text was written by a friend of mine who had a bad experience with a company called Fund Advisers in Luxembourg. You can contact him at fund_abusers@hotmail.co.uk. This is his personal opinion:
BEWARE OF FUND ADVISERS - A LUXEMBOURG BASED FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPANY
I was approached by this Luxembourg based company 'Fund Advisers' with regard to transferring my pension out of the UK. Lets just say I regrettably acceded to their sales pitch. Their subsequent handling of this matter has cost me substantial loss of potential with my pension due to their negligence, incompetence and failure to act on my instructions. They even lied to me that they had done as I requested. On top of this loss their charges are grossly inflated. Other companies in Luxembourg can perform the same exercise diligently and with less costs. I can give you details of such a company should you require.
I have contacted all the relevant regulatory bodies in Luxembourg with a view to taking action against Fund Advisers, or Fund Abusers as I prefer to call them. Having discussed this matter with other people I am aware that many other Brits in Luxembourg have suffered at the hands of these greedy incompetants.
My advice is deal with FUND ADVISERS at your peril. Their sole interest is to screw as much out of their clients as possible.
Update March 30, 2010:
Another issue I have with Fund Advisers is that not only do they get a good commission for selling an Insurance bond, they then try to charge clients 1% per annum of the value of their Insurance bond for a "delegated investment authority" this means they have authority to buy and sell assets on your behalf. To most people this sounds [like] a reasonable option as who has the time to research these things.
Be very wary of this service because they have only 6 funds in their range (of the 40,000 + that are available) that they choose for clients, and these are all high up front commission earning funds for the broker, this means the client is locked in to those funds for a number of years and it's the client that pays the penalty for getting out before that time frame. (the fund manager wants to recoup the commission paid to the broker)
Fund Advisers then buy and sell on your behalf at least once a year, ignoring the fact that the client incurs a penalty for an "early exit" from the fund and then they buy on behalf of the client new funds that generate extra commissions for Fund Advisors. If we lived in the UK this kind of dishonest and "financial rape" of clients would not be allowed.
2009-11-05
Not directly, like in the movies, instead I sent him a TV-B-gone as a birthday present (it actually arrived in time for Christmas).
TV-B-gone is a small remote control to turn off any kind of TV. It's been available for a while, you can see it in action in this infamous video.
Now I'm slightly afraid that he might use it at the wrong moment, like during a decisive football game or the final episode of the world's longest-running telenovela. People get upset if you take away switch off their TV.
I, personally, would rather spend my time doing something useful than watch television. All hail the internet!
