I always knew there was something fishy about those snotty folks.

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Brainstorming is an old and proven method of getting thought processes running. And now, BrainR, a project by the german information service Ideentower, brings this method to the Web 2.0. Just post a question and see how people make suggestions and tell their thoughts about it. I just gave it a try by posting a question about virtual training seminars So please, go over and post your ideas! I'm very curious how that will work.

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I finally gave in. After discovering Twitter, I immediately came to the conclusion that this was the ultimate weapon of mass productivity destruction. Now, there's not only the phone, e-mail and IM that's disturbing focus and concentration, we also get a kind of micro-blog that informs us in realtime about the thoughts and situations of people all around the world. "What a waste of attention", I thought. But after seeing how other people cave in because there actually are ways of using Twitter quite creatively and productively, I decided to give it a try, too. There's nothing like too much Web 2.0, is there? ;-) So, if you're curious what I think but not deem worth the effort to blog about it, see the litte paragraph on the right of my blog's main page or directly subscribe to my Twitter profile In the meanwhile, I will think of some creative ways of Twittering.

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Robert Basic seems to have been quite annoyed by the ever-recurring questions and statements people pose about his blogging habit, so he finally wrote a blog entry (in german), covering the following: But you mustn't go blogging this! But what about your social contacts? Get a Real Life. That must consume heaps of time. That's too complicated to me. Who is supposed to read all this? All bloggers do is whine and argue. That's all too commercial, bloggers just sell themselves. All bloggers are geeks and nerds. What do we need that for anyway? There's always email, forums and chats. You can't earn money that way. That just sucks. Why do you blog? I sympathize with his answers, but I guess that at least the last question didn't get answered fully...

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Yesterday, I arrived in Munich, land of the walking moustaches, for the German Perl Workshop that I will be attending from Wednesday to Friday. After discovering the open WLAN at FH München where the workshop takes place, I'm able to blog live from the talks. So, head over to IT-Dojo if you're interested in my findings.

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Finally, the meme has reached me by Helaron, and here they are: My first and only crime was the theft of a Sinclair ZX81 magazine that was too expensive for my allowance in 1984. I didn't have a computer yet at that time. In my first semesters of computer science, I had been thinking about taking on catholic theology and become a priest instead. When I'm excited, my eyes start to water. I'm afraid of heights, but I can overcome that fear by will. There's actually a way to make me really angry. Unfortunately, there's no place left to tell it to you. :-D The stick goes on to my lovely Carolin, to Andy and to Kai

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ScienceDaily reports that a pychologist from the University of Leicester published the first world map of happiness The meta-analysis is based on the findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data has also been analysed in relation to health, wealth and access to education. Among the top 10 of the happiest countries are many scandinavian countries. Other than the fact that the end of the list consists of african countries, this suprises me because countries like Finland are said to have a lot of depressed or even suicidal people due to the lack of sunlight over great parts of the year. With Austria coming in on third place, there's also a german-speaking country with many happy people. But Germany itself only ranks no. 35, miles behind Ireland and many of the other european countries. So, if living in Germany makes you unhappy, there are 34 choices where you could be better off... (via How to change the world)

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Armin sent me this email: You're not alone! I could touch him -- Elvis lives... standing in some little Tauren bar singing..."

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It's hilarious to read what helpdesk staff has to cope with on a day to day basis; the web is full of those stories. But it's even more hilarious to imagine how this may have looked like in the dark ages. No, not when DOS 5.0 came out -- I mean in the original dark ages: [youtube=[www.youtube.com/watch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjVeRbhtRU]) (via Basic Thinking)

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When Adam Curry discovered the concept of sitzend pinkeln" (peeing seated, even when you're male; a habit gaining ground at least in Germany) in one of his recent Daily Sourcecode episodes, I knew I had 2 cents to give away. And, lo and behold, he started his newly created "Are posh people pigs?" segment in "episode 452&episode_id=49221 by reading my email! :-) I guess the woman sitting in front of me on the tram must have become really frightened by my loony grin when I reached 19:15 into the podcast and was hearing my own words: Adam, mein Freund! DSC 540 had me in tears, listening to you speaking German about good bathroom manners! You're right, the concept of sitting down to pee is a pretty strange concept to some men, as you can see on this illustration: But if it's explained well, a man can get used to it after a while. I got too, especially because it's my turn to clean the bathroom including the toilet every second week. As you will have guessed until now, I'm a folder, as is every good German. Cheers, Jochen And Adam, no, although german women indeed are something special, my girl isn't forcing me to clean the bathroom. It's a matter of fairness to do it in turn -- she has to clean my shit[1] every second week, too. fn1. Not meant literally, we actually use the toilet brush, other than the (posh?) people your callers use to tell of.

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