Yet another great idea...

Introducing the audienceometer.

An essential piece of equipment for the modern person (good for both genders). The audienceometer (AM) behaves very much like the studio audience in a sitcom, except it is tuned in to "real life". The next time you make a stupid mistake like saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, the AM goes ooooooohh, thereby alerting you to your folly and allowing you to immediately correct your blunder or social faux pas.

When you say something really cute and positive to someone, it goes aaaaaahh, allowing you to then immediately correct it (if it was actually your worst enemy), or point two fingers at the person and click as you shoot your "guns" signalling your knowledge of how cool and caring you are.

Particularly helpful is the laughter at times of even mild humour, which boosts your own self confidence and allows you to continue telling stupid jokes long after you should have stopped. By this time people should be laughing at you, further helping you to think that your high school career counsellor was right about Stand-up Comedian.

The AM has the objectivity of an American teenager (additional maturity upgrade sold separately), and it's keen sense of social decorum is only enhanced by the user drinking heavily.

The AM is the size of a jelly bean and fits discreetly into the user's ear. It is only audible to the user to ensure you are unable to hear conflicting signals from potential other user's AMs (these things will soon be EVERYWHERE!)

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Batteries sold separately, no liability is accepted for AMs incorrect judgement. "Helping you be successful with other Emotional Failures" and the AM logo are copyright of the Consumer Crap Corporation.

Barefoot running

So with the failure of all searches for ethical running shoes (and let's not lie, if you're paying money for it, you can guarantee it's got something bad attached to it) I went for my first barefoot run yesterday.

I hope it won't be the last, it went pretty well. Well, until I got back that was. As I was stopping on the wooden walk way to the entrance of my plattenbau, I slipped on the smooth surface and my right foot shot forward and wedged itself in between said walkway and the little ramp up to the door. Ow. So my right toe is now swollen, and I don't think any running will happen for a while! Oh well, once it's healed I'll be back to barefoot.

Interesting fact is that apparently barefoot runners experience less repetitive stress injuries than runners running in shoes. This is evident in the Nike Free running shoes series and the Vibram Five Fingers, both shoes designed to simulate barefoot running (the five fingers is more a rubber foot glove...).

So welcome barefoot running, welcome the future. Goodbye toxic chemicals in running shoes, goodbye worrying about running shoe makers working conditions.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Eating Saturday morning

So I woke up at 1... and let myself loose on the streets of Berlin on the way to Oranienburg. I was feeling less than well, after getting back late (6) from a place who's name I don't remember. I walked to UFO and stocked up. I bought a mix im brot (haloumi and falafel in pita - goodness), a coke (big red ambulance, you know), an ayran and a piece of baklava. The baklava and coke I stowed in my pockets, and the ayran I downed, leaving only the mix im brot for the tram ride from Eberswalde to Nordbahnhof. Rode past the wall memorial - Berlin is truly an amazing city. By the time I reached Nbahnhof the mix was finished and getting out of the tram I opened up the coke (glass bottle, very cool) and headed into the underground S-bahn station.

There I sat on a bench on the platform, looking at the station name written in great old German gothic script. I sat with my legs crossed under me, and felt like a rock star (as you do). Having finished the coke I said to myself I could only eat the baklava once I was in the sun again. The s-bahn came, I sat next to a window and waited. Soon we were out of the tunnel and the baklava was the perfect sweet end to a fantastic meal. With my head against the window and the autumnal leaves flashing by I drifted in and out of sleep. Once I got to Orianienburg I walked off the s-bahn tossing the tinfoil from my mix into the air, and was feeling like a million dollars - exactly the feeling you need for baroque theatre in the landesgartenschau (think Chelsea flower show outdoors and in German).

Long time no post

So it's been a while, partly because I've been spending my time setting up ecoamsterdam.blogspot.com (yes, check it out!).

So a little something for now, written on a Saturday afternoon in a beer garden in Berlin:

Almost an afternoon in Prater...

I mean, it's just so unbelievably cool. The sun shining through the trees and clouds, landing golden in my beer. The diving board rusting and used now only as a light post. No swimming pool to dive into, just a concrete play place for children. And play they do, with the stones and anything else to hand. The small brown birds that are infused in Berlin's ground and flower beds gather, steal, depart. The cold of winter and Russian tanks and clinging waiting seems to lurk in the wind, but it is not here yet. The sun shines through the clouds again and friends and more beer arrive. I have picked up summers end and found it has all the flavour of the memories made by millions throughout this city of permanence and transience.

Computer (f).

Computers were clearly a male invention, something there primarily to increase production, and help those (mostly males) at the top destroy the world a lot faster than they were doing before computers arrived.

I've been asking myself (and others) what a computer designed (and invented?) by a woman would look like. Okay more than just look like, how would it function? It amazes how often women struggle with computers when in my experience most men seem to understand them intuitively (or is it just that men never ask for help!).

The answer that I've gotten from a number of people is that a woman would not invent a computer. I think that's it, but I'm still intrigued by my own question (ah thank you) though and would love a really creative answer. For a start, I think it would have more inputs than just a mouse and a keyboard (maybe some frikkin voice recognition :-). Something more intuitive - how do you take the motion of picking cherries and turn it into a computer input device? Okay, hopefully I'll come back to this question...

Mamma always told me...

To learn to touch type.

And being a young male adolescent and the last child (see, I would be touch typing if I had a younger brother.... clearly), I can clearly remember sitting in the dining room at the computer saying, now worries mum, when I grow up keyboards will be a thing of the past. I was firm believer in voice recognition software, and to be fair, we did have a very basic package in the house (yep, even back in the day) and it could capture the gist of what I was saying, but clearly things never progressed much beyond that.

I guess though that a software that is to be sold on the mass market would never be able to adjust or adapt to the millions of different voices in the world, not to mention languages, not to mention accents. And that's the thing about a successful product it can be used by everyone everywhere. So here I sit, not being able to touch type (as well as I'd like) and without any flippin voice recognition.

So now I have installed addictive typing on both my work and home computers and am trying to do at least 10 minutes a day. I'm getting better, but I'm sure as my mother predicted, it is much harder to relearn to type properly than to just do it.

Rest assured that if I ever have children they will be persuaded to learn to type, but I'll at least be giving them a Dvorak keyboard, because this whole qwerty nonsense is way past its sell by date.

Damn it, keep typing those b's with both pointing fingers...

How much is enough?

So starting from the fact that we're all aware their is big trouble on the horizon for the world.

How much of what we do is enough? What do you have to do in order to be satisfied you will be leaving a world set to support your children through their lifetimes? When should you stop working for a better world and relax with the people you love (if your work doesn't include them)?

I don't know, but looking at the way things are going, I would say we could still take it up a notch!

A scary climate vision

I've just finished reading Greenpeace's Climate Vision. It's the organisations vision for stopping anthropocentric climate change.

The scariest thing was the figures - emissions need to peak by 2015 and sink to 0 by 2050. 0, that means NO C02 emmissions. This is to stop the worst, not to save everything.

What I appreciated though was their directness in showing on page 16 that we might actually have to change our lifestyle in order to bring about these decreases. It's pretty clear to me, and I think anyone who thinks about it for any serious length of time - we cannot go on living like we are, if we don't change, we will be forced to.