warriors

Thousands of people are expected to see the Terracotta Army at the British Museum from 13 September until 6 April.
I had the privilege to see China’s First Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi’s legacy two years ago when I visited Xian. And I am delighted that many people will take the chance to see it now that it is coming to London.
Given the heavy carbon footprint that flights inflict upon the environment, travelling exhibitions may well be the solution for the future.

Power and the instrument to legitimise it: soldiers (2200 years later)

Digital 'Smiley Face' Turns 25 :-)

Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes — a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis — as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message, says Daniel Lovering for the BBC. Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect.Emoticons reflect the likely original purpose of language — to enable people to express emotion, said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford University. The emotion behind a written sentence may be hard to discern because emotion is often conveyed through tone of voice, he said.
"What emoticons do is essentially provide a mechanism to transmit emotion when you don't have the voice," Nass said. In some ways, he added, they also give people "the ability not to think as hard about the words they're using."


:-)

my dog and the metric system

they think he's guilty, he thinks they see the pint before they see the beer!

The European Commission has tired of waiting for the UK to give up imperial measurements, and now says it can use some of them. In that light, English people can continue to confuse visitors with the pound, the ounce and the mile for as long as they want. Although some experts claim that the metric system was originally invented in England before being adopted by the French, English people have barricaded behind the imperial measurements, absurdly making it a question of national pride.

Some people say that that’s exactly why we love the English, because they are different.

I am not so sure I enjoyed their inclination towards peculiarity when we tried to board the ferry that was going to take us from Spain back to England this summer though. We were travelling with our dog Tim, which had to be treated against worms and ticks before what we understood was 48 hours. Having visited the vet in Santander the morning before embarking, we innocently queued on the pier until they singled us out. The dog’s Dutch passport was incomplete, and the worm treatment had to be given after 48 hours before embarking but before 24 hours before embarking. Confused? So were we. Any alternatives? Yes, you can either wait in Santander for the next ferry which will depart in a week’s time or drive 1000 kilometres to France and take the next one tomorrow, by then the treatment will be in the right time window.

Sorry, how many miles to France did you say?

autumn

Calendar of the Soul

September 09, 2007 - September 15, 2007

There dims in damp autumnal air

The senses' luring magic;

The light's revealing radiance

Is dulled by hazy veils of mist.

In distances around me I can see

The autumn's winter sleep;

The summer's life has yielded

Itself into my keeping.

English translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch

mensenzoo

Last Sunday I saw one of the best examples of the famous Dutch tolerance in action at the cultural festival and day-without-cars in Utrecht. I am talking of Mensenzoo (people zoo) installed in the post office square, one of the hot spots in the city. Consists basically of a group of stalls in which a ‘specimen’ of the human race is ‘exhibited’ (farmers, homeless, homos, children, immigrants, and almost all the groups in the human family were represented). You could talk to the people in the stalls, ask them questions and, as in any other zoo, take photos of you and your favourite creature.
The idea behind it is to promote a society which does full justice to each individual irrespective of religion, age, social status or sexual preference.
And the way to achieve that? By improving communication and respect for each other’s differences in a funny, provocative way!
















Meet one another, exchange views and learn from one another.

first webcam

The first image ever broadcasted by a webcam was a black and white live picture of the Trojan room coffee pot in the computer science department at Cambridge University in 1991.
Fellow academics working in other parts of the building could check the state of the coffee pot and thus avoid pointless trips to the coffee room.

See below an image of how Cambridge students spend their time nowadays!

lost in translation