I understand the method and the modulo behind leap years, although it seems a rather inelegant solution just to tack on an extra day to poor, over-burdened February.
Wednesday 29 February 2012
intercalary or lieblings
catagories: ✝️, ๐งฎ, holidays and observances
Monday 27 February 2012
meet and seat or strangers on a train
A European airline has a new pilot program for its passengers, which invites solitary fliers to pick their seatmates based on their social- and business-networking profiles for long-haul flights.
catagories: ๐ง , ๐งณ, networking and blogging
Sunday 26 February 2012
long winter’s nap
BBC's news magazine is drawing on a body of evidence, anecdotal, historic and scientific, which strongly suggests that convention wisdom regarding sleep may be a very modern contrivance and something unnatural and possibly something that we are not ideally suited for. Rather than sequestering oneself for a solid, uninterrupted and sacrosanct period of eight hours, which does seem like an awfully lofty and impractical demand, mankind through most of its history had distinct periods of sleeping and waking during the night, a segmented sleep.
catagories: ๐ง , health and medicine, lifestyle
Saturday 25 February 2012
the queen’s english
LA looks or the mamas and the papas
Thursday 23 February 2012
♥s fear
Though I am not sure I agree with the entire premise and ultimate (end-state) projections of the article, I do find myself passing judgment on the inarticulate feeling of unease that one takes a way from the continuing German Wirtschaftswunder. The feeling is not quite menacing but more than just smug and competent, and like Alternet writer Marshall Auerback suggests, I do wonder if the Germans, sometimes criticized for championing austerity elsewhere have not already been institutionalized at home, instigating a race-to-the-bottom (Abwรคrts-Wettlauf) in terms of treatment for workers.
This is a thoughtful article and raises many valid points, like a lot of Alternet's coverage. Just like Greece, as a member of the eurozone, Germany cannot devalue its currency in order to wedge a competitive advantage but it can tweak the wages and benefits of its workforce. The series of labour reforms from the Hartz Commission (DE/EN), the working-poor currently protected by Hartz IV, I don't think are meant to squeeze the poorest of society and I think only give tacit allowance to business-models that might led to underemployment or a generational schism between older workers steady on to retirement and younger workers not shoring up a pension. One could envision such portents, however, following the lead of labour conditions in the States, with receding prospects for retirement and clinging to jobs barring many younger applicants. The manufacturing component, however, I think is elided in order to draw these analogies, though the potential for inculcating a certain culture and attitude should certainly be guarded against.
catagories: ๐ฉ๐ช, economic policy, foreign policy, labour